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A senior defense official said on Monday that the United States has reduced its nuclear weapons stockpile by 84 percent from 1967 levels.

The Armed Forces Press Service has reported that the unnamed official, speaking to reporters on background, said the nation's nuclear arsenal stood at 5,113 warheads as of Sept. 30, down from a peak of 31,255 in fiscal 1967.

According to the reports, Israeli researchers are conducting basic research into alleviating chronic pain.

It has been reported that researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel, led by Dr. Joel Hirsch, seek to learn how the body's calcium channels that enable pain signals to travel from the body to the brain work. They are also looking for why calcium channel blocker drugs now in use don't always succeed in dulling the pain lingering after accidents or due to prolonged illnesses like arthritis.

U. S. researchers have said that a "stealth" strategy motivates students to change eating habits for environmental and social reasons, not personal health.

Published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study found students taking a course on the ethical, environmental and social ramifications of food consumption made healthier eating choices than students taking one of three courses dealing with the health aspects of food such as obesity.

Eating a couple of tablespoons of olive oil daily may help prevent ulcerative colitis, British researchers have suggested.

According to the media reports, study leader Dr. Andrew Hart of the University of East Anglia and colleagues compared the diets of those who developed ulcerative colitis, an intestinal disease characterized by pain, diarrhea and weight loss, with those who did not develop the disease and found those with the highest intake of a substance found in olive oil -- oleic acid -- had a 90 percent lower risk of developing the disease.

U. S. researchers have suggested that pregnant women should take 4,000 International Units of vitamin D daily.

Taking vitamin D supplements during pregnancy is not only safe for both mother and baby, but may prevent infections and pre-term labor/births, says study leader Dr. Carol Wagner of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Findings of the randomized-controlled study were presented in Vancouver at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.

U. S. researchers have found that elementary school children who are obese have 63 percent higher odds of getting bullied than their thinner classmates.

17 percent of U. S. children ages 6-11 are obese, said lead author Dr. Julie C. Lumeng of the University of Michigan's C. S. Mott Children's Hospital and colleagues.

The study involved 821 children participating in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.