A rare case of raccoon rabies is responsible for killing both a U.S. kidney donor in 2011 and his transplant recipient 18 months later, U.S. researchers said Tuesday.

The report in the July 24 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association describes the final results of an investigation into the case, which was announced by U.S. health authorities in March.

U.S. regulators on Tuesday released a review of scientific data that shows menthol cigarettes are harder to quit than regular kinds, and asked for public input on a possible ban.

The mint-flavored cigarettes do not appear linked to a higher risk of disease, but do likely pose "a public health risk above that seen with non-menthol cigarettes," said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Older adults with diabetes are between 50 and 80 percent likelier to have a disability compared to people without the disease, according to a review published on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, trawled through more than 3,200 previously published studies that explored the link between diabetes and disability.

More than 125 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation, and 30 million more girls are at risk in the next decade, UNICEF said Monday.

Although genital cutting is on the decline, the practice remains "almost universal" in some countries, said the report by the United Nations Children's Fund. The report compiles 20 years of data across 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Men who skip breakfast may face a higher risk of heart attack or deadly heart disease, according to U.S. research published on Monday.

A study of nearly 27,000 men found that those who failed to eat in the morning had a 27 percent higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease than those who did.

The heat wave that hit New York last week killed four elderly people, the office of the city's chief medical examiner (OCME)said Monday.

The four victims all succumbed to hyperthermia, which occurs when a body absorbs more heat than it can release. Two women, 81 and 83, died of the condition on Saturday, a day after two men, aged 78 and 88, succumbed in similar circumstances.

A cholera epidemic in Burundi, the longest in the small central African country's history, has killed at least 17 people in 10 months, a top health official told Agence France Presse Monday.

"Burundi has been affected since last October by a cholera epidemic," said Liboire Ngirigi, director general of public health.

Russian patient Valentina Micheeva (left) talks to her doctor Irina Ivanova four days after her hip operation at the Coxa hospital in Tampere, Finland. Coxa HealthCareFinland, together with other …more

Sitting on a hospital bed with a slight smile on her face, Valentina Micheeva looks a decade younger than her 80 years as she explains how four days earlier she had her hip replaced -- not in her native Russia but at a clinic in Finland.

The first time Miriam Lipton had breast cancer, her thick hair fell out two weeks after starting chemotherapy. The second time breast cancer struck, Lipton gave her scalp a deep chill and kept much of her hair — making her fight for survival seem a bit easier.

Hair loss is one of chemotherapy's most despised side effects, not because of vanity but because it fuels stigma, revealing to the world an illness that many would rather keep private.

Blind mice have been able to see once more in a laboratory exploit that marks a further boost for the fast-moving field of retinal therapy, according to a study published on Sunday.

Scientists in Britain used stem cells -- early-stage, highly versatile cells -- taken from mice embryos, and cultured them in a lab dish so that they differentiated into immature photoreceptors, the light-catching cells in the retina.