Nov. 30  -- Top healthcare executives say the U.S. medical system is wasteful, inefficient and not giving people their money's worth.

"We're not getting what we pay for," said Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. "It's just that simple."

Cortese and other healthcare executives estimate as much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent annually on medical care does nothing to improve health, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Nov. 28 -- A deputy health minister in Zimbabwe says the oncoming rainy season could aggravate an outbreak of cholera in the African nation.

New York  - The United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS said Friday that governments and healthcare services should study new patterns of HIV infections in order to make preventive programmes more effective.

UNAIDS said that as the pattern of an epidemic can change over time, analyses of its spread should be undertaken at regular intervals.

"Not only will this approach help prevent the next 1,000 infections in each community, but it will also make money for AIDS work more effective and help put forward a long-term and sustainable AIDS response," said UNAIDS director Peter Piot.

The realignment of HIV prevention programmes would be based on understanding why new infections occurred, he said.

ROCHESTER, N.Y.,  Nov. 27 -- It need not be the season to use sugar in large quantities, a U.S.endocrinologist says.    

There are ways to keep the holidays sweet but healthy suggests Dr. Nicholas Jospe of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

"Sugar isn't necessarily bad -- it just has to be managed," Jospe says in a statement.

OAK BROOK, Ill.,  Nov. 27 -- A U.S. study shows colorectal cancer deaths among men and women dropped 4.3 percent per year from 2002 to 2005, researchers said.

The study, issued annually since 1998 by the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, said the incidence rate for colorectal cancer -- the rate at which new cancers are diagnosed -- dropped 2.8 percent per year among men and dropped 2.2 percent per year among women from 1998 to 2005.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.,  Nov. 27 -- Obesity gradually numbs the taste sensation in rats to sweet foods and drives them to consume larger and ever-sweeter meals, U.S. researchers said.

"When you have a reduced sensitivity to palatable foods, you tend to consume it in higher amounts," Andras Hajnal of the Pennsylvania State University said in a statement. "It is a vicious circle."

Previous studies have suggested that obese persons are less sensitive to sweet taste and crave sweet foods more than lean people, Hajnal said.