(HealthDay News) -- Patients coping with metabolic syndrome have a 75 percent higher risk for developing colorectal cancer sometime in their lives, a new study suggests.

"Metabolic syndrome is a conglomeration of three or four diseases, that together can portend a worse prognosis for certain illnesses, including a number of cancers," said study co-author Dr. Donald Garrow, a clinical gastroenterology fellow at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

WASHINGTON - The government is urging consumers to thoroughly cook frozen chicken dinners after 32 people in 12 states were sickened with salmonella poisoning.

The health warning by the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited frozen dishes in which the chicken is raw, but breaded or pre-browned, giving the appearance of being cooked. They include "chicken cordon bleu," "chicken Kiev," or chicken breasts stuffed with cheese, vegetables or other items.

FRIDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- With the Chinese milk products-melamine scandal generating fresh headlines, U.S. health officials on Friday unveiled what they consider acceptable levels of contamination with the industrial chemical.

The bottom line: No amount of melamine is safe in infant formula.

For all other foods, only amounts less than 2.5 parts per million are risk free, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said.

(HealthDay News) -- New research shows that overeating triggers a metabolic response normally dormant in the hypothalamus region of the brain, even when a person hasn't gained weight.

"We discovered a very general disease pathway in the hypothalamus, a structure in the middle part of the brain which functions to regulate appetite, feeding behavior, energy and therefore body-weight balance and metabolic processes," said Dr. Dongsheng Cai, senior author of a paper published in the Oct. 3 issue of Cell that details the findings.

FRIDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they have developed a model for cystic fibrosis (CF) in piglets that may help improve understanding of the disease in human infants and help in the discovery of new treatments.

The finding, by researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri, was published in the Sept. 26 issue of Science.

FRIDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- As food-safety problems continue to rock the United States, resulting in massive recalls, illness and even death, the federal Food and Drug Administration remains underfunded and understaffed to protect consumers, a new government report concludes.

The report, released Friday by the Congressional General Accountability Office (GAO), found that the FDA lacks the inspectors, staffers and scientists to safeguard the food supply, particularly fresh produce.

HealthDay News) -- Black people undergoing colon cancer screening are more likely to have large precancerous polyps than are whites.

Black men had a 16 percent increased risk of polyps more than 9 millimeters (mm) in size than white men. And the difference in women was even more striking with black women having 62 percent higher odds of a 9 mm or larger polyp, according to new research.

FRIDAY, Sept. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Banning soft drinks in elementary schools may not make a huge difference in kids' overall consumption of the beverages, a new study suggests.

A researcher found that fifth-graders whose elementary schools didn't allow the sale of soft drinks consumed just 4 percent less overall than those children in other schools.

"It's a pessimistic picture I'm painting here," said study author Meenakshi M. Fernandes, a doctoral fellow at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif.

Testing prompted by an Associated Press story that revealed trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies has shown that more Americans are affected by the problem than previously thought — at least 46 million.

That's up from 41 million people reported by the AP in March as part of an investigation into the presence of pharmaceuticals in the nation's waterways.

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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Minute particles of food soil on surfaces can help bacteria survive industrial cleaning procedures in food processing factories, which may lead to possible contamination of food with pathogenic bacteria, say researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom.