TUESDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Drinking alcohol doesn't seem to boost a woman's risk of ovarian cancer, while caffeine may help protect against the disease, a new study found.

In the same study, smoking cigarettes wasn't linked with an increase in the most common types of ovarian cancer but was associated with an increase in a rare subtype of the disease.

It's too soon to recommend drinking caffeine to lower ovarian cancer risk, said study senior author Shelley S. Tworoger, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

"The results do need to be confirmed in other studies," Tworoger said. The lack of risk for alcohol and smoking has been found in other research, she added.

For the study, Tworoger and her colleagues looked at data from questionnaires in the Nurses' Health Study, which includes 121,701 U.S. female registered nurses. The study began in 1976, with women then aged 30 to 35 completing questionnaires, then replying every two years to update the data.

Tworoger's team looked at the association between smoking and ovarian cancer risk among 110,454 of the women, and the association between alcohol and caffeine and ovarian cancer risk among 80,253 women, all followed from 1976 to 2004. For the smoking analysis, the researchers found 737 confirmed cases of epithelial ovarian cancer, the most common type of ovarian cancer. For the diet analysis, they found 507 women with epithelial ovarian cancer.

No association was apparent for drinking alcohol and ovarian cancer, or for smoking, with one exception. "It [smoking] does appear to increase the incidence of a rare type, mucinous ovarian tumors," she said, a subtype of epithelial ovarian cancer.

However, the researchers found an "inverse trend" for total caffeine intake and caffeinated coffee consumption and ovarian cancer, but the individual risk reductions didn't reach statistical significance.

The association for caffeine was strongest if the women had never used either birth control pills or hormones after menopause, Tworoger said. Why caffeine may be protective isn't certain, she said, but its consumption may lower estrogen levels, at least in postmenopausal women.

The study findings are published in the March 1 issue of Cancer.

Sherry Salway Black, executive director of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance and an ovarian cancer survivor, agreed it's too early to recommend caffeine as a risk-lowering strategy.

Tworoger said her team plans to further study the caffeine-ovarian cancer link.

For now, she advised: "Always talk to your doctor before you make any huge lifestyle changes." And keep the risks in perspective, she added. "Because ovarian cancer is relatively rare, women should talk to their doctor first about the risk of getting ovarian cancer."

Black agreed, adding: "Know the symptoms of ovarian cancer. Know your family history and your risk and talk with your health-care provider." Get advice about what to do, she said, especially if you have a higher-than-average risk.

About 22,430 new cases of ovarian cancer were found in the United States in 2007, according to the American Cancer Society, and about 15,280 women died of the disease that year. Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer in women -- not counting skin cancer -- and it's the fifth-leading cause of cancer death in women.

Symptoms include bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, urinary frequency and difficulty eating or feeling full quickly.

In another study published this week, caffeine was found to increase the risk of miscarriage. Kaiser Permanente researchers in California looked at 1,063 pregnant members of the HMO and found those who drank 200 milligrams or more of caffeine a day -- about two or more cups of coffee or five 12-ounce sodas -- had twice the miscarriage risk of those who avoided caffeine entirely. Even smaller amounts increased risk, with women drinking less than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day showing more than a 40 percent increased risk of miscarriage, compared to those who took in no caffeine.

The study was published online in the January issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

More information

To learn more about ovarian cancer symptoms, visit the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance  .

TUESDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Breast cancer patients who undergo reconstruction surgeries after a mastectomy are twice as likely to suffer an infection at the surgery site if they receive an implant instead of their own tissue, a new study finds.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis analyzed 949 hospital admissions for mastectomy or breast reconstruction surgery at a university-affiliated hospital between 1999 and 2002.

Reporting in the January issue of the Archives of Surgery, they found that surgical site infections occurred in 50 women (5.3 percent) within one year of surgery. These infections arose in a little more than 12 percent of mastectomies where breast reconstruction involved an implant, compared to just over 6 percent of mastectomies where the reconstruction involved the patient's own abdominal tissue.

"The bottom line is that implants are associated with an increased risk of infection in breast cancer patients," study author Margaret Olsen, a research assistant professor of medicine at the university, told The New York Times. "The question is what factors contribute to this increased risk and what can be done to prevent it?"

The average time between surgery and infection diagnosis was about 47 days, the researchers noted.

Patients with surgical site infections had significantly higher hospital cost -- an average of about $4,100 per patient -- and they had a significantly longer total length of hospital stay, the study authors wrote.

Speaking to the Times, another expert said there are many reasons why implants could boost infection risks. Dr. Stephen R. Colen, chairman of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, said that any time a foreign body is introduced during surgery it provides a surface on which bacteria can grow. And implantation involves a number of procedures that create opportunities for infections to occur, he said.

But Colen also stressed that reconstruction using abdominal tissue has its own risks. He told the Times that these procedures take several hours longer than implant reconstructions, boosting patients' odds for blood clots and lung embolisms. And in 2 percent of cases, the transplanted tissue dies, necessitating more surgeries.

Effective prevention measures would reduce both infections and related costs, Olsen's team wrote. Those measures include, "strategies to optimize the timing and dosage of prophylactic antibiotics administered before the surgical incision, glucose control in diabetic patients, promotion of meticulous hand hygiene and strategies to promote timely removal of drains, among others," they said.

More information

Breastcancer.org has more about breast surgery  .

MONDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Increased blood sugar levels signal a heightened risk of heart disease, especially among women, a new study finds.

In fact, women may face a greater risk for heart disease at lower blood sugar levels than men, according to the report in the Jan. 22 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"The new definition of high fasting glucose, which is defined as a blood sugar between 100 and 125 milligrams per deciliter [of blood], has the same predictive value of diabetes and heart disease as the old definition of fasting glucose, which was 110 to 125 milligrams per deciliter," said lead researcher Dr. Caroline Fox, a medical officer with the Framingham Heart Study.

Moreover, for any level of blood sugar, women have a higher risk of developing diabetes and heart disease compared with men, Fox added.

In the study, Fox and her colleagues collected data on 4,058 men and women who were the children of the original participants in the Framingham Heart Study, a 50-year research project named for a Massachusetts town. During four years of follow-up, 291 people in Fox's trial developed heart disease.

The researchers found that the higher the blood sugar at the start of the study, the greater the likelihood of developing heart disease. Based on the new definition of high blood sugar, the researchers determined that women were at greater risk for developing heart disease than men.

Specifically, women whose blood sugar was at 110 to 125 milligrams per deciliter of blood had the same risk of developing heart disease as women with diabetes.

Dr. John B. Buse, president for medicine & science at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), said this study confirms what other studies have found.

"Women who don't have diabetes usually don't have heart attacks," said Buse, who is director of the Diabetes Care Center at the University of North Carolina. "Women with diabetes, basically, all have heart attacks."

People at risk of diabetes should have their blood sugar measured, Buse added. "If the fasting glucose test is elevated more than 100 milligrams per deciliter [of blood], it means that you are at risk of developing diabetes and you may have some excess risk of heart disease, particularly if you are a woman," he said.

The ADA recommends that everyone over age 45 should have a fasting glucose test, Buse said. "Normal is less than 100 milligrams per deciliter, so 99 is normal, 100 isn't," he said. "If the test is normal it should be repeated every three years."

People under 45 who are overweight and have any risk factors for diabetes should be screened earlier and more often, he said.

More information

For more on diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association  .

FRIDAY, Jan. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Pregnant women who eat a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, dairy products and olive oil may help protect their children against asthma and allergies, new research suggests.

The study, published online this week in Thorax, included 468 mother and child pairs that were followed from pregnancy up to 6.5 years after birth. The researchers collected information on eating habits and on the children's asthma and allergy symptoms.

About 36 percent of the mothers ate a low-quality Mediterranean diet during pregnancy, while the rest ate a high-quality Mediterranean diet. A little more than 13 percent of all the children had persistent wheezing, 17 percent had positive responses to skin test allergens, and almost 6 percent had asthma-like symptoms plus positive skin test results.

The study found that mothers who ate a high-quality Mediterranean diet during pregnancy were significantly more likely to have children free of asthmatic symptoms and allergies than women who ate a low-quality Mediterranean diet.

Pregnant women who ate vegetables more than eight times a week, fish more than three times a week, and legumes more than once a week seemed to protect their children the most from asthma and allergies. Mothers who ate red meat more than three to four times a week seemed to increase their children's risk.

Children's eating habits at the age of 6.5 years seemed to have little effect on their asthma or allergy risk, the study found.

More information

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology has more about prevention of allergies and asthma in children  .