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Women who gain more than 40 pounds during pregnancy have nearly twice the risk of delivering a heavy baby as those who gain less, U.S. researchers said on Friday.

So says a new study in which researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston studied 32,000 women, the largest number of participants ever for a study of this kind, the authors say.

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis said Friday higher sales of its most widely prescribed treatments helped lift its core earnings in the third quarter.

Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis says its adjusted net profit rose 1.9 percent to 1.89 billion euros ($2.46 billion) in the period, driven by strong growth from its top-selling anti-thrombotic and blood thinners Lovenox and Plavix, as well as diabetes treatment Lantus.

The world's third-largest pharmaceutical company by prescription sales also hiked its target for earnings per share growth this year to 9 percent on an adjusted basis and excluding foreign exchange impact, up from its July guidance of an 8 percent increase.

The government should ban the diabetes drug Avandia because of a wide variety of life-threatening risks, including heart and liver damage, a consumer group said Thursday.

A popular antidepressant plus three months of psychotherapy dramatically helped children with anxiety disorders, the most common psychiatric illnesses in kids, the biggest study of its kind found.