Despite medicines for patients with vascular disease, a large international study shows these patients have a surprisingly high rate of recurring strokes, heart attacks and hospitalizations as well as mortality. Patients in North America experienced an above-average rate of these events. Patients in Eastern Europe had the highest rate, and those in Australia and Japan had the lowest.

Paradoxically, mortality rates during economic recessions in developed countries decline rather than increase, according to a new analysis.

Mothers and fathers play different roles and make different contributions to a child's upbringing, but a father's influence upon a child's academic success later in life is felt the most when he's involved from the very beginning, according to a new study.

A new study indicates that pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette syndrome and/or tic disorder may develop from an inappropriate immune response to the bacteria causing common throat infections. The mouse model findings support the view that this condition is a distinct disorder, and represent a key advance in tracing the path leading from an ordinary infection in childhood to the surfacing of a psychiatric syndrome.

A new study shows that social stress could be an important precursor to heart disease by causing the body to deposit more fat in the abdominal cavity, speeding the harmful buildup of plaque in blood vessels, a stepping stone to the No. 1 cause of death in the world.