THURSDAY, Aug.5 (HealthDay News) -- During an attack on an Afghanistan village, shrapnel sliced into a 5-year-old girl's skull, almost killing her. U.S. military helicopter pilots flew her to a hospital at Bagram Airfield, where a U.S. neurosurgeon operated, saving her life.

(HealthDay News) -- Angina is the term for chest pain that occurs when a portion of the heart isn't getting enough oxygenated blood.

(HealthDay News) -- Tonsillectomy, a surgical procedure to remove the tonsils, is a common treatment for frequent infections of these glands, located in the back of the mouth.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Kidney disease patients in poor communities are less likely than patients in wealthier areas to receive optimal care before they start dialysis, a U.S. study has found.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- The 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus used a new biochemical trick to hijack host cells, a feat that triggered the recent pandemic, according to an international team of scientists.

THURSDAY, August 5 (HealthDay News) -- When an ice hockey player slams an opponent against the board it may get the crowd's attention, but most injuries in youth hockey are caused by accidents, not intentional "body checking," researchers have found.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- An infectious disease spreading across the northeastern United States has killed millions of bats over the last four years and may lead to the regional extinction of a once-common bat species called the little brown myotis, say researchers.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- While maintaining a healthy weight is linked to a lowered risk of heart disease and diabetes, being overweight may actually protect some women from a form of glaucoma, Harvard researchers say.

THURSDAY, August 5 (HealthDay News) -- People diagnosed with ulcerative colitis after age 50 are more likely to achieve symptom relief than people diagnosed at a younger age, even when they receive similar treatments, finds a new study.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Tongue piercing can lead to a damaging habit that causes a gap to appear between the upper front teeth, which could cost thousands of dollars to fix, a case study suggests.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- In a sign that diabetes may strike at the brain early in life, a small study found that obese children with type 2 diabetes suffer from thinking difficulties that do not appear in non-diabetic overweight kids.

(HealthDay News) -- Here are the latest clinical trials, courtesy of ClinicalConnection.com:

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Black teens can gain a measure of protection from heart disease by taking daily vitamin D supplementation at levels that are five times the current recommendations, new research suggests.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Fibromyalgia patients have more "connectivity" between brain networks and regions of the brain involved in pain processing, which may help explain why sufferers feel pain even when there is no obvious cause, a new study suggests.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- An older Mozambican woman named Maryam could not see two fingers held up just one foot in front of her when she arrived for a Pentecostal prayer intervention in her village. Nor could she see an eye chart from a similarly close distance.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Women who get pregnant within six months after having a miscarriage stand the best chance of having a healthy pregnancy with the fewest complications, Scottish researchers report.

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- People who smoke cigarettes and also use other forms of tobacco have higher levels of nicotine addiction, find it more difficult to quit using tobacco, and are at greatly increased risk for tobacco-related health problems such as cancer, heart disease and stroke, warns a new government study.