An Australia-led study has identified a gene associated with a common form of epilepsy which could lead to earlier diagnosis, a researcher said Tuesday.

Melbourne University academic Ingrid Scheffer said a number of genes linked to epilepsy were known to scientists, but these related to rare families in which a large number of members had the condition.

People age 65 and older who eat fish may live an average of two years longer than people who do not consume the omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in seafood, a U.S. study suggested on Monday.

People with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids also had an overall risk of dying that was 27 percent lower, and a risk of dying from heart disease that was 35 percent lower than counterparts who had lower blood levels, said the study.

Health officials say they still don't understand how a lesser-known bird flu virus was able to kill two men and seriously sicken a woman in China, but that it's unlikely that it can spread easily among humans.

Two men in Shanghai became the first known human fatalities from the H7N9 bird flu virus after contracting it in February. A woman in the eastern city of Chuzhou remains in serious condition, China's National Health and Family Planning Commission said.

Nearly one in five American teenage boys is diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, marking a dramatic rise in the past decade, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The condition, for which potent stimulant drugs like Adderal or Ritalin are often prescribed, has been previously estimated to affect three to seven percent of children.

Shanghai is stepping up monitoring at local hospitals after a new strain of bird flu killed two people last month in China's commercial hub, state media said Monday.

The Chinese government said over the weekend that two men, one aged 87 and the other 27, had died after being infected with H7N9 avian influenza -- a sub-type that had not previously been transmitted to humans.

Some 240,000 children have missed U.N.-backed vaccinations against polio because of security concerns in Pakistan's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, a top official with the World Health Organization said Friday.

Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, the acting WHO chief in Pakistan, said health workers have not been able to immunize children in the North and South Waziristan regions — Taliban strongholds — since July 2012.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a first-of-its-kind diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson that uses a new method to lower blood sugar — flushing it out in patients' urine.

The agency cleared J&J's Invokana tablets for adults with Type 2 diabetes. The once-a-day medication works by blocking the kidneys from reabsorbing sugar, which occurs at higher levels in patients with diabetes than in healthy patients. Regulators highlighted the drug as the first in a new class of medications that could help address the growing U.S. diabetes epidemic.

The latest affliction to hit weary residents of Aleppo is written on their faces. Some call it the "Aleppo button", a welt caused by leishmaniasis, an illness that is sweeping the Syrian city.

Transmitted by flies, the parasitic disease arrived along with the thousands of Syrians displaced from their homes by fighting.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Friday underwent a “successful surgery” at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Hamra.

“Speaker Berri has been admitted to the American University of Beirut Medical Center and (ex-health minister) Dr. Mohammed Jawad Khalife is conducting an urgent surgery on him," al-Jadeed television reported.

A U.S. study out Friday sought to dispel the fears of about one third of American parents that giving a series of vaccines to children may be linked to autism.

Even though children are receiving more vaccines today than they did in the 1990s, there is no link between "too many vaccines too soon" and autism, said the study in the Journal of Pediatrics.