"Pink slime" just went from a simmer to a boil.

In less than a week earlier this month, the stomach-turning epithet for ammonia-treated ground beef filler suddenly became a potent rallying cry by activists fighting to ban the product from supermarket shelves and school lunch trays.

Health researchers said on Thursday they had found a troubling link between higher consumption of rice and Type 2 diabetes, a disease that in some countries is becoming an epidemic.

Further work is needed to probe the apparent association and diets that are notoriously high in sugar and fats should remain on the no-go list, they cautioned.

Civil unrest is increasing the risk of hunger for 1.4 million people in Syria, which must raise cereal imports by a third to offset a loss in output, the United Nations' food agency said Thursday.

"Continued civil unrest in the Syrian Arab Republic since mid-March 2011 has raised serious concern over the state of food security, particularly for vulnerable groups," the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said.

A sedentary lifestyle can amplify a genetic disposition to obesity, but just walking briskly, and briefly, each day can cut that effect in half, a new study showed Wednesday.

"This is the first study that directly looked at the effect of the sedentary behavior of television watching on the body mass index (BMI) of individuals with a genetic predisposition to obesity," said study author Qibin Qi authors at a conference by the American Heart Association this week in San Diego, California.

The American University in Cairo said Wednesday that a team of its researchers has designed a faster and cheaper test for all types of hepatitis C, which it says affects about 10 million Egyptians.

The development "reduces the two-step testing process carried out over a number of days to a one-step process that takes less than an hour... at a fraction of the cost of traditional diagnostic protocols," the university said.

Three South Korean pharmaceutical firms will soon be allowed to produce generic versions of the anti-impotence drug Viagra despite a row over patents, officials said Wednesday.

The Korea Food and Drug Administration said generic products made by the three local firms have passed a "bioequivalence" test.

Tobacco taxes and smoking bans haven't budged the U.S. smoking rate in years. Now the government is trying to shock smokers into quitting with a graphic nationwide advertising campaign.

The billboards and print, radio and TV ads show people whose smoking resulted in heart surgery, a tracheotomy, lost limbs or paralysis. The $54 million campaign is the largest and starkest anti-smoking push by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its first national advertising effort.

Vietnam says an ongoing outbreak of a common childhood virus has killed 11 and sickened more than 12,000 mostly under 3-year-olds this year.

The Health Ministry says the infection rate of the hand, foot and mouth disease from January 1 to March 9 was seven times higher than the same period a year ago and is expected to rise further in coming months.

U.S. researchers said Tuesday a cancer drug has shown promise toward improving memory when given to older mice with Alzheimer's disease.

The drug, epothilone or EpoD, had previously been shown by the same team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania to prevent cognitive decline in young mice who were bred to show Alzheimer's-like symptoms later in life.

Women who had a Cesarean section for their first child's birth face more health risks if they attempt a vaginal birth with their second, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

The study included more than 2,300 women at 14 hospitals in Australia who were preparing for their second child. About half signed up for a vaginal birth after C-section, or VBAC, and the other half chose to repeat the surgery.