The Canadian Press - WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has approached CNN's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, to be the country's next surgeon general, the cable news network said Tuesday.

AFP - WASHINGTON (AFP) - President-elect Barack Obama wants CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta to be his surgeon general and serve as chief overseer of Americans' health, the network said Tuesday.

AFP - WASHINGTON (AFP) - The hormone leptin, combined with one of two US-approved drugs, may suppress appetite in overweight people, making it a potentially powerful weapon in the fight against obesity, according to a study published Tuesday.

AFP - KOLKATA, India (AFP) - Health authorities in India on Saturday confirmed a fresh outbreak of deadly bird flu after thousands of chickens died, officials said.

AFP - PARIS (AFP) - Scientists say they have pinned down a DNA mechanism that gives rise to a rare but distressing form of baldness that strikes before adulthood.

AFP - LONDON (AFP) - As people trudged back to work on Monday bloated from the excesses of Christmas and New Year partying, British scientists warned that buying "detox" products may do nothing to help them recover.

AFP - GENEVA (AFP) - People wounded in fighting in the Gaza Strip are dying because ambulances cannot reach them, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday.

AFP - GENEVA (AFP) - At least 1,732 people have died in Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic and the number of cases diagnosed has risen to 34,306, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday.

AFP - LUANDA (AFP) - Angola has shut down its northeastern border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in a bid to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, the state-run ANGOP news agency said on Tuesday.

AFP - BEIJING (AFP) - A woman in Beijing has died of suspected bird flu after handling parts of a dead duck, Chinese state media said Tuesday.

AFP - BEIJING (AFP) - Bird flu re-emerged as a threat in Asia on Tuesday after China reported the disease killed a woman in Beijing and neighbouring Vietnam said a girl had contracted the virus.

AFP - BLANTYRE (AFP) - The death toll in Malawi's cholera outbreak has hit 13, more than doubling from last month, while 370 cases have been recorded, health officials said Tuesday.

AFP - WASHINGTON (AFP) - Childhood trauma, including sexual abuse, emotional abuse and emotional neglect, was linked to a six-fold risk increase for chronic fatigue syndrome in adults, in a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

AFP - SYDNEY (AFP) - Spending a couple of hours outdoors each day could help children avoid becoming short-sighted, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

AFP - SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian researchers funded by US billionaire Bill Gates Friday claimed a breakthrough which could help in the fight against dengue fever by stopping the often deadly disease in its tracks.

AFP - VATICAN CITY (AFP) - The contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said Saturday.

The Canadian Press - TORONTO - Some are young mothers in their 30s, others 20-somethings starting their first jobs, and on rare occasions they are even teenage girls just finishing high school.

AFP - OTTAWA (AFP) - Alzheimer's disease affects not only the elderly, said a study Monday that found 14 percent of the estimated 500,000 Canadians suffering from dementia are under the age of 65.

AFP - NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's state-run carrier Air India has dismissed 10 women flight attendants who were grounded last year for being overweight, a report said Monday.

AFP - GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israel's military onslaught against Hamas has aggravated Gaza's humanitarian crisis, with electricity and communications cut and the population now facing dire food shortages, aid agencies said Sunday.

AFP - LONDON (AFP) - The government launched a campaign to fight the nation's expanding waistlines on Friday with a cartoon by the Oscar-winning animators of Wallace and Gromit to hammer home the message.

AFP - NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand (AFP) - Thousands of people have been given artificial limbs by the Prostheses Foundation, which uses unique techniques and some salvaged materials to provide cheaply-made prosthetics to Thais who have nowhere else to go.

The Canadian Press - WASHINGTON - Old mosquitoes usually spread disease, so Australian researchers figured out a way to make the pests die younger - naturally, not poisoned.

AFP - GENEVA (AFP) - More than 30,000 people in Zimbabwe have been diagnosed with cholera, the World Health Organisation said Thursday, as the number of those contracting the deadly disease continues to mount.

AFP - LONDON (AFP) - Making self-improvement New Year's resolutions often leaves people feeling worse, the British mental health charity Mind has warned.

AFP - NAIROBI (AFP) - The United Nations has introduced a new ready-to-use food supplement which could significantly boost efforts to reduce child malnutrition in Somalia, said a statement received by AFP Thursday.

The Canadian Press - BEIJING - A former dairy boss in China's scandal over tainted milk blamed for the deaths of at least six babies and illnesses of nearly 300,000 others has pleaded guilty to charges that could lead to the death penalty, Chinese news media reported.

AFP - JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - The Red Cross has deployed seven emergency teams normally reserved for major global disasters to fight Zimbabwe's worsening cholera epidemic, it said in a statement Wednesday.

The Canadian Press - BEIJING - The former chairwoman of the dairy company at the heart of China's tainted milk scandal went on trial Wednesday on charges of selling fake or substandard products, Xinhua News Agency reported.

AFP - HONG KONG (AFP) - A Hong Kong-born infant has contracted a mild form of bird flu, the fifth case of its type in the territory, health authorities said Tuesday.