A new study has found that working the night shift long-term may double a woman’s risk of breast cancer. The association was found in women who did night shift work for 30 or more years. The researcher team led by Kristan Aronson, a professor of public health sciences at the Queen's Cancer Research Institute at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, found no increased risk among women who worked that shift fewer than 30 years.

The number of prescription painkiller overdose deaths increased fivefold among women between 1999 and 2010, according to a Vital Signs report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While men are more likely to die of a prescription painkiller overdose, since 1999 the percentage increase in deaths was greater among women (400 percent in women compared to 265 percent in men).

Controlling your high blood pressure and high cholesterol may cut your risk for heart disease by half or more, yet fewer than one in three people are doing it, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

The American Heart Association (AHA) is backing a bill introduced in Congress this week by Representative Lois Capps (D-Calif.) that would fund CPR training in schools.

While extreme storms like tornadoes and hurricanes get most of the media attention, a far simpler weather condition – heat -- is much deadlier. Heat kills an average of 658 people every year -- more than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and lightning combined. In the disastrous heat wave of 1980, more than 1,250 people died. In the heat wave of 1995 more than 700 deaths in the Chicago area were attributed to heat. In August 2003, a record heat wave in Europe claimed an estimated 50,000 lives.

When you’re at the drug store reaching for a sunscreen product, you may notice some changes on the labels. Health experts recommend using sunscreen products that offer Broad Spectrum protection and have an Sun Protection Factor (SPF) of 30 or higher.

An illness which originated in September in the Middle East and has killed at least 30 of the 54 people infected appears to be raising alarms in the U.S.  – but a move by public health officials may just be a strategy to prevent its spread.

Final rules related to employment-based wellness programs have been published, representing the last step in implementing the Affordable Care Act. Assistant Secretary of Labor Phyllis C. Borzi answered three frequently-asked questions about the rules:

The EPA this week proposed two rules that would require composite wood products produced domestically or imported into the United States meet the formaldehyde emission standards established by Congress.