A Missouri woman has sued L’Oréal and several other beauty product companies, alleging that their hair-straightening products caused her uterine cancer. The lawsuit claims that Jenny Mitchell’s cancer “was directly and proximately caused by her regular and prolonged exposure to phthalates and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in defendants’ hair care products.” Mitchell, now 32, was…  read on >  read on >

School-age kids who spend hours a day playing video games may outperform their peers on certain tests of mental agility, a new study suggests. Researchers found that compared with children who never played video games, those who regularly spent hours gaming had higher scores on two standard cognitive tests: one measuring short-term memory and another…  read on >  read on >

Experts studying kids’ sleep and eating habits have learned more about a potential reason for childhood obesity. Kids who are deprived of sleep tend to eat more calories the next day, researchers found. And some of those extra calories come from less-healthy, sugar-laden snacks or treats. “When children lost sleep, overall they ate an extra…  read on >  read on >

Surgery can be a daunting prospect at any age. Now, researchers say they’ve spotted two key factors upping the odds of a poor surgical outcome in seniors. Older adults who are either frail or suffering from dementia have high rates of death in the year following a major procedure, a new U.S. study finds. Researchers…  read on >  read on >