MONDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Women who smoke two packs of cigarettes a day have a 21 percent greater risk of developing high blood pressure, increasing their risk for heart disease, a new study found.

Women who smoke less have less of a risk, but even those who smoke a pack a day significantly increase their risk for high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, the study said.

The findings are published in the Nov. 20 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"Women who smoke a pack a day are at increased risk of developing hypertension," said lead researcher Dr. Thomas S. Bowman, who's with the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Women who smoke two packs a day are at even greater risk," he said.

For the study, Bowman's team collected data on 28,236 women who took part in the Women's Health Study. During a follow-up of 9.8 years, 30.4 percent of the women developed high blood pressure.

The researchers found that women who smoked 15 or more cigarettes a day had a 11 percent greater risk of developing high blood pressure, compared with women who never smoked. Women who smoked 25 or more cigarettes a day had a 21 percent greater risk.

For women who smoked fewer than 15 cigarettes a day, the risk for high blood pressure was a relatively insignificant 4 percent, the researchers found.

Whether quitting smoking reduces the risk of high blood pressure isn't known, Bowman said, but he suspects that the longer a person smokes, the greater the risk.

Bowman noted the high blood pressure can lead to heart disease and stroke. "Hypertension may be the pathway to strokes and cardiovascular death and heart attacks," he said.

Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, said the study findings are yet another reason not to smoke.

"We really don't need another reason for people not to smoke," he said. "This study adds to the information about another potential mechanism by which smoking contributes to adverse outcomes."

Aside from the 5,000 chemical and known carcinogens in cigarettes, high blood pressure is another threat that comes with the habit of smoking, Krumholz said.

Krumholz said the new finding should have meaning for girls thinking about taking up smoking. "They know about the risk for cancer and heart disease, but this is something more for them to consider as a reason to stay away from cigarettes," he said.

More information

For more on smoking and heart disease, visit the American Heart Association  .

MONDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise may seem best at preventing illness rather than treating it, but a new study suggests that low-impact physical activity could make an immediate difference for people with one tough-to-treat condition: fibromyalgia.

Women with the little-understood chronic pain syndrome who exercised moderately for four months reported feeling better in a number of ways.

The study didn't say how much more likely the women were to feel better after adopting an exercise regimen, and it's not clear how long the effects last. Still, the findings are promising, said study lead author Daniel S. Rooks, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"Exercise should become a part of the treatment plan for people with fibromyalgia," Rooks said. "Basic, simple walking, starting slow and gradually improving, as well as basic flexibility training should be part of what people do to help themselves."

Fibromyalgia causes intense pain and can produce fatigue, insomnia and other symptoms. An estimated 3.5 percent of U.S. women suffer from the syndrome, compared to 0.5 percent of men.

There has been much debate about fibromyalgia, particularly over the role that mental health may play in its progression. Treatment options include pain medications, antidepressants and counseling.

Doctors often recommend exercise as a treatment, but it hasn't been clear exactly what kinds of physical activity should be recommended, Rooks said.

Enter the new study, in which researchers looked at the experiences of 135 women with fibromyalgia from 2002-2004 who were assigned to one of four groups, three of which consisted of exercise regimens.

The researchers gave questionnaires to the women about the state of their fibromyalgia, both before they began the four-month exercise programs and after they completed them. Those who took part in strength training, aerobic activity, and flexibility training -- along with a self-help course on managing fibromyalgia -- reported the most significant improvement, the study found.

Women also improved after taking part in just flexibility and aerobic exercise or in all the three types of activity but without the self-help course. Those who just took the course noted the least improvement.

"Everybody improved if they exercised," Rooks said. "Everybody had some improvement in some aspect of things we were testing."

The study was published in the Nov. 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The exercise levels required in the study, which was funded by the Arthritis Foundation and U.S. National Institutes of Health, were moderate and didn't require sweating, Rooks said. "Part of the message is that you didn't have to work like you were training for the marathon to improve your health," he said. "That was an important message we tried to communicate throughout the study. It was a very well-received message."

There were other benefits of exercise, too. Social function, mental health, fatigue and depression also improved, the study authors wrote. The beneficial effect on physical function of exercise alone and in combination with education persisted at least six months.

Why would exercise be so helpful? "There is a physical part of it and an emotional part of it," Rooks said. "It gives people confidence that they can use their muscles when people have been telling them not to use their muscles."

Dr. Roland Staud, professor of medicine at the University of Florida and a fibromyalgia expert, said exercise is crucial for improvement in patients with chronic pain.

He called Rooks' study well done, if small, and said it shows the value of aerobic exercise in particular. "A lot of fibromyalgia patients think exercise creates more pain, and that wasn't shown here."

More information

To learn more about fibromyalgia, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

(HealthDay News) - Hysterectomy is a surgical procedure in which a woman's uterus and possibly other female reproductive organs are removed.

Here are guidelines to help you prepare for recovery from a hysterectomy, courtesy of the New York State Department of Health:

• You will have to stay in the hospital at least overnight. The length of your stay will depend on the type of hysterectomy and whether you have complications.
• For a few days after surgery, you may have pain and discomfort. Your doctor may prescribe pain medication.
• You should be able to walk on your own within two or three days of surgery.
• You should be able to resume sexual activity after about six to eight weeks.
• You should be able to resume most activities in about four to eight weeks.
• You may tire easily and quickly during your recovery.

FRIDAY, Nov. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Women taking oral contraceptives are at a slightly increased risk for developing cervical cancer, but a decade after stopping the pill even this very small risk disappears, a new British study suggests.

However, that finding doesn't change the recommendation for women to continue getting screened for cervical cancer, experts say.

"This is good news," said lead researcher Dr. Jane Green, an epidemiologist in the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. "We have been able to estimate the lifetime risk of cervical cancer for women on the pill and find it's really quite small," she said.

"The small increase in cervical cancer we see in women who are taking oral contraceptives starts to fall once pill use stops and has really gone away by 10 years after stopping use," Green said.

"The pill has many other benefits, including reducing the risk of other cancers, such as ovarian cancer and womb cancer," Green added.

The report is published in the Nov.10 issue of The Lancet.

In the study, Green and her colleagues from the International Collaboration of Epidemiological Studies of Cervical Cancer collected data on almost 16,600 women with cervical cancer and more than 35,500 women without cervical cancer. These women had participated in a total of 24 studies.

Green's team confirmed that the risk of cervical cancer among women who use oral contraceptives does increase over time. But this increase in risk is very small -- women who take contraceptives for five years or more have only about twice the risk compared with women who never took the pill.

In absolute terms, that means that a 20-year-old woman living in a developed country who uses an oral contraceptive for 10 years increases her odds of developing cervical cancer by age 50 from 3.8 cases per 1,000 women (without Pill use) to 4.5 per 1,000 women after using oral contraception. In less developed countries, where access to cervical cancer screening is more limited, that risk rises from 7.3 to 8.3 cases per 1,000 women, the researchers estimated.

Similar risk was seen for invasive and localized cancer and in women who have the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes about 70 percent of all cervical cancers, Green noted.

Although the risk for cervical cancer associated with the Pill is small, Green advised women to still be screened for the disease. "Screening for cervical cancer is effective," she said. "The advice is to go for regular screenings."

Eventually, Green hopes that the vaccination against the human papillomavirus will go a long way to preventing many cases of cervical cancer.

One expert agreed that the findings showed the risk for cervical cancer from oral contraceptives was very small.

"This is reassuring news for women," said Dr. Peter Sasieni, from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary University of London and author of an accompanying journal comment. "There is really a minimal risk from oral contraceptives, and that risk disappears fairly soon when you stop taking them," he said.

"When making a decision about what from of contraception to use, women shouldn't worry about cervical cancer," Sasieni concluded. "It's not an issue," he said.

However, he believes that taking oral contraceptives is another good reason to get screened regularly for the disease. "By going for regular screenings, a women can reduce her risk by 80 percent," Sasieni said.

Another expert agreed that women shouldn't worry about the Pill and cervical cancer risk.

"I don't think women are basing their decision of which form of contraception to use on the risk for cervical cancer," said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer at the American Cancer Society. "People who want to use oral contraceptives should not be alarmed over the slight increase in cervical cancer risk," she said.

However, women -- whether they take oral contraceptives or not -- should be getting regular cervical cancer screening, Saslow said.

More information

For more on cervical cancer, visit the American Cancer Society  .