The number of Botox procedures among 20-somethings rose 8 percent in 2012 to 92,955 from the prior year, according to the 2012 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. (ABC News)

An important new study suggests that statins, the cholesterol-lowering medications that are the most prescribed drugs in the world, may block some of the fitness benefits of exercise, one of the surest ways to improve health. (New York Times)

Female genital mutilation, the cutting of sexual organs, is thought to affect 66,000 women in the UK. (BBC)

The American Cancer Society - one of the nation’s best known and influential health advocacy groups - is 100 years old this week. (AP)

A 33-year-old Polish man received a life-saving total face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest timeframe to date for such an operation. (AP)

More and more studies show that being overweight does not always shorten life — but some public-health researchers would rather not talk about them. (Nature)

A research program that should eventually allow all cancer patients to have access to genetic testing has been launched with £2.7 million ($4 million) funding from the Wellcome Trust. (Medical News Today)

If online oversharing is a public health problem, then the state’s decision to harness it for its own purposes means that huge, powerful forces within government will come to depend on it. (The Guardian)

DNA methylation, the addition of a methyl group to specific locations on a DNA strand, plays a critical role in determining which genes are active in a cell at any given time. It plays an important role in embryonic development, cell growth and reproduction, and many diseases, including cancer. Now, researchers collaborating at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign have developed a novel single molecule test for detecting DNA methylation that should greatly simplify and advance the study of this important genomic process. (Nanotechnology Now)

If you land in an intensive care unit sick enough for doctors to consider withdrawing life support, be warned. Whether and when to pull the plug may depend in large part on the practices and culture of the ICU itself — perhaps more than your needs or wishes, a new study finds. (NBC News)

Members of the National Bioethics Committee of Jamaica (NBCJ) are benefiting from training to strengthen the body’s capacity to address the ethical and moral implications of medical and biological research. It is the third such session under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s(UNESCO) Bioethics Programme. (Jamaica Information Service)

In a sign of how much the controversy over human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) has waned, the most prominent lobbying group for hESC research announced today that it is folding after 12 years. The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR) will transfer its work to another group that focuses on moving hESC research into the clinic. (Science)

A federal court Tuesday struck down Arizona’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy absent a medical emergency. (ABC News)

The new campaign is geared specifically at Hispanic and African-American parents because, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the current age of diagnosis among these groups, as well as among low-income families, is higher than that of the general public. (New York Times)

Researchers at King’s College London scanned 55 premature infants and 10 babies born at full term, using a novel type of MRI scan. The brain scans showed arrested development in the premature babies at a key stage of maturation. (BBC)

With this as my background, I am hardly a disinterested reviewer of a new anthology of essays by 21 nurses. It is beautifully wrought, but more significantly a reminder that these “semi-invisible” people, as Lee Gutkind calls them in this new book, are now the “indispensable and anchoring element of our health care system.” (New York Times)

The past few years have seen two remarkable health-care experiments in the Beaver State. One is the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, the first randomized, controlled trial comparing Medicaid — or any kind of health insurance — with being uninsured. The other is Kitzhaber’s effort to rebuild the state’s Medicaid program around community health rather than individual fee-for-service treatments. The health-insurance experiment has gotten all the attention. But it’s the Medicaid reforms that really matter. (Washington Post)

The popularity of Platelet-Rich-Plasma (PRP) has escalated as many high profile elite athletes from a diverse array of sports have opted for this treatment. (Sacramento Bee)

Dr Jose Polo of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) and the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology and his team, with collaborators at Harvard, have comprehensively mapped, for the first time, the process by which mature cells are re-programmed to become an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell. (Phys.org)

An experimental stem-cell treatment has restored the sight of a man blinded by the degeneration of his retinal cells. The man, who is taking part in a trial examining the safety of using human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to reverse two common causes of blindness, can now see well enough to be allowed to drive. (New Scientist)

Peter Shumlin, the Democratic Governor of the small progressive-leaning state, signed into law a bill that lawmakers adopted last week. Vermont follows the states of Oregon and Washington in legalizing the practice. (AFP)