People who see images of their badly clogged arteries are more likely to lose weight and take anti-cholesterol drugs than people who don't see severe disease on a computerized scan, according to researchers.

Two studies presented at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting in Chicago showed that having a look at the real-time effect of one's own lifestyle habits was a major motivator for change.

An experimental blood thinning drug made by the pharmaceutical giant Merck may reduce the risk of dying from a heart attack but also boosts the danger of internal bleeding, researchers said Saturday.

The latest data further clouds the future for Vorapaxar, an anti-platelet medicine that works differently than aspirin or the popular blood thinner coumadin, and which Merck had hoped might one day be a new blockbuster drug.

Eating raisins and soy appears to help ward off high blood pressure, a key risk factor in heart disease, according to two studies presented at a major U.S. cardiology conference on Sunday.

Munching on a handful of raisins three times a day helped people with slightly elevated blood pressure lower their numbers after several weeks, said one of the studies presented at the American College of Cardiology conference.

Life begins at 40, but not for a small and ageing fleet of nuclear reactors vital for millions of life-saving medical procedures each year and using material that could go in an atomic bomb.

Ahead of this week's Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, there has been scant progress in addressing the concerns surrounding this other major use of atomic technology, despite the problems being known for years, experts say.

Patients with advanced heart disease who received an experimental stem cell therapy showed slight improvements in blood pumping but no change in most of their symptoms, U.S. researchers said Saturday.

Study authors described the trial as the largest to date to examine stem cell therapy as a route to repairing the heart in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and left ventricular dysfunction.

Vietnam has approved a new 23-million-dollar fund to tackle bird flu after new strains of the virulent disease emerged in the communist country this year, the health ministry said.

The fund, made up of 13 million dollars of aid and 10 million dollars in loans from donors, aims to improve co-ordination between officials in the health and agricultural sectors, according to the ministry's website.

A Canadian witness told a trial over alleged illegal organ trafficking in Kosovo how he received a kidney at the Medicus clinic -- and may even have flown in with his young Russian donor.

Raul Fain, 66, testifying by video link from Ontario, Canada, told the court Friday he had had transplant surgery in mid-2008 at the Medicus clinic, which has since been shut down.

The British government will introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol in England and Wales to tackle their infamous binge-drinking culture, Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Friday.

Cameron said a minimum price of around 40 pence ($0.60, 0.50 euros) per 10-millilitre unit of alcohol would help stop the "scourge of violence" caused by rowdy revelers in town centers and would cut alcohol-related deaths.

Twelve people have died from swine flu in India since the beginning of March and nearly 110 others have been infected with the virus, the country's health ministry said.

The ministry announced in a statement late on Thursday that the victims were from the western states of Maharashtra and Rajasthan as well as southern Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

China will abolish the transplanting of organs from executed prisoners within five years and try to spur more citizens to donate, a top health official says.

Rights groups call transplants from condemned prisoners a form of abuse and allege that the government, which executes far more people than any other nation, pressures them to donate organs. The government, however, says prisoners volunteer, and that the change is being made because prisoners are less healthy than the general population.