A new eight year long European study concludes that salt consumption is not dangerous and may in fact be beneficial. This is certainly contrary to advice from American Medical Association, American Heart Association and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which says higher sodium consumption can increase the risk of heart disease. It's not unusual to see differing opinions, but what are we ordinary folks to make of the controversy?

The study followed 3,681 middle-aged Europeans who did not have high blood pressure or heart disease at the start of the study. They were divided into three groups: low salt; moderate salt; and high salt consumption. There were 50 deaths in the low salt group, 24 in the moderate consumption group and only 10 in the high consumption group. In fact, the heart disease risk in the low consumption group was 56% higher in the low salt group. What they concluded was that the less salt the participants ate, the more likely they would die from heart disease.

When the climate gets wetter, plagues can get worse, according to a new study that reveals why the plague was much worse in China's north than in the south.

The results also suggest that climate change could mean more virulent plagues in northern China and North America, as parts of the globe get wetter.

A bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which is carried by rodents, is responsible for three types of plague: bubonic (also called Black Death), septicemic and pneumonic plague. Together, these illnesses have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people the world over, including an estimated third of Europe's population during the Middle Ages. While modern antibiotics can effectively treat plague, thousands of cases are still reported each year to the World Health Organization, and the bacterium has been identified as a possible biological warfare agent.

A cholera epidemic that has already killed 32 people in Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to the capital Kinshasa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Three cases of the deadly waterborne disease have been confirmed since last week in Kinshasa, home to at least 9 million people, many of whom live in cramped, unsanitary conditions.

"If there's an epidemic here it will be very, very dangerous," said Eugene Kabambi, communications officer for the WHO. "People are living in very precarious conditions, there are zones along the river which are very exposed."

Traders traveling by boat down the Congo River are bringing the disease from Bandundu province, he said, near an area where an outbreak has infected more than 680 people and killed 32 this month.

A scarlet fever outbreak in Hong Kong, thought to be a mutant strain resistant to antibiotics, claimed the life of a second child on Tuesday and health officials there state they are dealing with "an epidemic."

Hong Kong officials have recorded 494 cases of scarlet fever this year, more than triple the total for 2010. It is the city's highest annual total. Thomas Tsang, controller for Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection, said: "We are facing an epidemic because the bacteria that is causing scarlet fever is widely circulating in this region -- not only in Hong Kong but in mainland China and Macau," according to Asia Pacific News (APN).

In mainland China, more than 9,000 people have been infected this year, double the numbers of recent years. Increased transmission of the disease is believed caused by a unique gene fragment in the bacteria's genome, a health protection centre statement said, APN notes.

Many Veggie Burgers, Nutrition Bars and Other Soy Foods Contain Hexane

Soy-based foodstuffs like veggie burgers and nutrition bars are a go-to source of protein and generally considered "health foods." We eat them because we believe they are a healthy alternative to meat and because soy foods have a reputation for being produced in a more environmentally friendly or sustainable fashion than animal sources of protein.

But the benefits of highly processed forms of soy protein - to people or the environment - was called into question by a November 2010 report from the Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit which claims that non-organic soy protein is commonly extracted from the soybeans by literally bathing the beans in n-hexane, a chemical byproduct of petroleum refining.

Even popular brands of nutrition bars, veggie burgers and other meat alternatives marketed as "natural" are often guilty of this practice unless they are specifically labeled "USDA Organic."

Soybeans were originally introduced to U.S. farmers in the 1930s from Southeast Asia where they were traditionally treated with hot water to yield soy milk and tofu or else fermented to obtain products like soy sauce, miso and tempeh. Soybeans were initially grown in the U.S. for use as soy cooking oil which was extracted mechanically (through pressure), and the protein-rich residue was and is still used as animal feed.

By the 1950s, soy oil was the most popular vegetable oil in the U.S., though rapeseed oil (canola) later surpassed it in popularity.

However, chemical extraction was applied to soybean processing in the latter half of the 20th century to derive the various protein derivatives now added to many human foods: soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, and textured soy protein. The first step in obtaining any of these is the chemical bath which extracts the soy oil, leaving behind "defatted" soy flour which undergoes further processing into the different forms of soy protein incorporated into foods.

Cocaine used to just get you high. Now it rots your skin.

Doctors say the cocaine hitting the streets in New York and Los Angeles is now cut with a drug that veterinarians use to de-worm livestock, causing cokeheads' skin to rot off.

In a June report published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, doctors described six cases where users developed ghastly splotches of dead skin after snorting or smoking cocaine laced with the drug levamisole.

Dr. Mary Gail Mercurio, a dermatologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center who co-authored the study, said her hospital had treated five cases in the last year.

"We've seen very profound areas of necrosis -- dying skin -- usually located on scalp, ears, face and elsewhere on the body," Mercurio said. "It's very alarming."

Nearly a dozen more patients have been admitted to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, KTLA television reported.

Some residents of a Santaquin neighborhood have come down with a mysterious illness and they don't think they have just passed around the flu. The mother of a four-month-old tainted with E.coli believes there may be something wrong with the water.

Carolyn Thomas is obviously concerned. Her baby Kaycee is sick and they don't know why. Thomas asked, "How did my four-month-old get that much E. Coli in her system?"

All of Carolyn's children have been sick and tested positive for E. Coli. She thinks there is something in the water.

Thomas said, "Her formula is mixed with tap water and that's all I use for her. What else could it be for a four-month-old?

The mystery fever that has gripped children in Bihar's Muzzafarpur district has been diagnosed as encephalitis even as the virus claimed three more lives, taking the toll to 36.

Two children died at Kejriwal Hospital, while another died at Srikrishna Medical College Hospital (SKMCH) here, official sources said.

Thirty-three children had died due to the fever in Muzaffarpur district , the sources said. A Central team, which had collected blood samples of the patients to ascertain the cause of the deaths, said that it was clinically diagnosed that the children were suffering from encephalitis.

"We can say the reason of the death of children is encephalitis but at this stage it is difficult to say what sort of encephalitis it is, whether it is viral one or Japanese", Dr I P Choudhary, member of the Central team, told reporters.

Table sugar, the form of sugar individuals generally spoon into their tea or coffee or use when making, say, cakes and puddings, is comprised of sucrose. Sucrose is technically termed a 'disaccharide', a term used to describe sugars which are comprised of two individual sugar molecules joined together. Those two sugars, in the case of sucrose, are glucose and fructose, and when sucrose it is digested down to its constituent sugars prior to absorption into the bloodstream.

The glucose in sucrose undoubtedly contributes to the glycaemic load of the diet, and the more sugar someone eats, the greater the rise in blood sugar levels. More glucose in the bloodstream means more insulin, of course, which as we know can contribute to health issues such as insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and, of course, weight gain.

In contrast to glucose, fructose has traditionally enjoyed a healthy reputation, mainly on the basis that it does not raise blood sugar levels. Fructose is also the predominant sugar in many fruits - something which tends to bestow it with an image of healthiness.

In recent years, though, a steadily growing mound of research demonstrates that fructose, while it does not raise blood sugar levels directly, can nevertheless have some profoundly toxic effects on the body. Interest here has been sparked, at least in part, by the fact that increasing amounts of the sweetening agent 'high fructose corn syrup' (HFCS) are making their way into the diet. HFCS is made cheaply by the chemical treatment of the starch in corn, and contains fructose and glucose in roughly equal measure.

Hong Kong authorities have declared an outbreak of scarlet fever following the second death of a child from the disease in the past month, and a record number of cases so far this year.

Of particular concern is that the bacterium responsible for scarlet fever appears to have mutated and become more resistant to antibiotics used to treat the disease.

The outbreak is troubling given Hong Kong's history of epidemics.

A 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, claimed several hundred lives.

Several outbreaks of swine flu have also occurred in the city.