THURSDAY, Nov. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Two of life's simple pleasures -- a glass of wine, a little time in the sun -- may have benefits for women's health.

Wine first: In a report from Spain, researchers at the University of Barcelona evaluated the effects of moderate consumption of red and white wine -- 6.8 ounces, or two glasses a day -- in 35 nonsmoking Spanish women, average age 38.

The study was done like any other controlled medical trial, with each woman drinking the recommended "dose" of either white or red wine for four-week periods, with a four-week dry period separating each round of study.

"The data showed that, in comparison with the baseline period, consumption of both red and white wines increased serum [blood] HDL cholesterol (often called 'good' cholesterol), which suggests a cardio-protective effect," said the report in the November issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"Similarly, serum concentrations of interleukin-6 and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (both markers of chronic inflammation), decreased significantly after both wine ingestion periods," the authors wrote.

Other markers of cardiac health were affected "in a healthy way" by red wine a little more than by white wine, the researchers added. The study provides, "scientifically rigorous evidence" that moderate wine consumption helps keep the heart healthy by preventing low-grade inflammation in women, the Spanish team concluded.

"This continues to add to many other studies by showing the mechanisms by which both red and white wine help prevent heart disease," said Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, professor of medicine and public health at Boston University. "When you give women a glass and a half of wine each day, you have considerable effects on improving inflammation, a little more for red wine than for white," said Ellison, who was not involved in the research.

A number of other studies have shown the same protective effect in men, with slightly greater intake of wine, Ellison said.

Next, sunlight: In the same issue of the journal, a British-American team reported a trial in which levels of inflammation-related molecules were measured against blood levels of vitamin D, made naturally by the skin when it is exposed to sunlight.

"The purpose of the study was to see if there was a correlation between vitamin D levels and indicators of aging," said co-researcher Jeffrey P. Gardner, a professor at the Center of Human Development and Aging at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

In addition to measuring blood levels of inflammation-linked molecules such as C-reactive protein, the researchers also measured the length of sections of the women's DNA called telomeres.

"Other people's work indicated that telomeres were bioindicators of aging, more than a person's chronological age," Gardner said.

Longer telomeres indicate low levels of inflammation, he explained.

Sure enough, the data indicated that higher levels of circulating vitamin D was associated with longer telomere length. Women with the lowest concentration of vitamin C and highest concentration of C-reactive protein had telomeres short enough to indicate about 7.6 more years of aging than women with the highest vitamin D and lowest C-reactive protein levels.

"Optimal vitamin D status may provide a benefit during the aging process," the researchers concluded, with additional trials needed to prove the point.

Still, health experts caution that excessive exposure to sunlight remains a leading risk factor for skin cancer. And too much drinking can harm the body in numerous ways.

More information

There's more on vitamin D at the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

MONDAY, Nov. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Breast-fed babies are less likely than bottle-fed infants to have certain cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in adulthood, say U.S. researchers who analyzed two generations of participants in the Framingham Heart Study.

"Having been breast-fed in infancy is associated with a lower average body-mass index (BMI) and a higher average HDL (high-density lipoprotein, or "good" cholesterol) level in adulthood, even after accounting for personal and maternal demographic and CVD risk factors that could influence the results," study author Dr. Nisha I. Parikh, a cardiovascular fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a prepared statement.

Lower BMI and high HDL both protect against CVD, noted the researchers, who found that middle-aged adults who were breast-fed as infants were 55 percent more likely to have high HDL levels than to have low HDL levels, defined as less than 50 mg/dL for women and less than 40 mg/dL for men.

Average HDL levels among adults who'd been breast-fed was 56.6 mg/dL, compared with 53.7 mg/dL for adults who'd been bottle-fed. However, the researchers said this difference was not statistically different once BMI was considered in a later analysis.

Adults who were breast-fed had a lower mean BMI than those who'd been bottle-fed -- 26.1 vs. 26.9. People with a BMI higher than 25 are considered overweight and increased risk for CVD.

"This was a modest reduction in BMI [among those who'd been breast-fed], but even a modest reduction leads to a significantly reduced risk of cardiovascular disease-related death," Parikh said.

Breast-feeding was not associated with any other adult CVD risk factors, the researchers said.

The study was to be presented Monday at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about heart disease.

SUNDAY, Nov. 4 (HealthDay News) -- More American women are suffering from asymptomatic peripheral artery disease, a circulatory condition that can signal a higher risk for heart attack and stroke, a new study found.

The increase is likely the result of an increase in common cardiovascular risk factors, namely obesity and type 2 diabetes.

But there's a silver lining -- asymptomatic (symptomless) peripheral artery disease (or PAD) can serve as an early warning system for other circulatory problems, experts say.

"The good thing about PAD is it's a peripheral marker for what's probably going on in the coronary arteries as well," said Dr. John P. Erwin III, an associate professor of internal medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

"Treatment, especially for asymptomatic patients, is exactly what we would want people to do for coronary disease," added Erwin, who's also a cardiologist with Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas. "If we take tight control of diabetes, we help them lose weight, quit smoking, get cholesterol levels down. This has been very, very efficacious in preventing further stenosis [narrowing of the blood vessels] and, in some small trials, there's even been a question about regression of the disease."

The findings were to be presented Sunday at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Peripheral artery disease occurs when fatty deposits cause the arteries to narrow, reducing the flow of blood to the limbs -- the peripheries of the body.

The study authors, led by Dr. Andrew Sumner of the Heart Station and Cardiac Prevention at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa., analyzed data from three National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) between 1999 and 2004. In all, the study involved 5,376 participants aged 40 and over with no prior history of cardiovascular disease.

All participants underwent an ankle-brachial index, which measures the ratio of the blood pressure in the arms and legs.

"The very nice thing about PAD is that we have a very simple, noninvasive test that we can do that is very effective at screening," Erwin explained.

People with an index of less than 0.9 are classified as having PAD.

The study authors found that the prevalence of PAD among adults 40 years and older with no symptoms increased from 3.7 percent in the 1999-2000 survey to 4.2 percent in the 2001-02 survey, and to 4.6 percent in the 2003-04 survey.

The prevalence of PAD was highest among those aged 70 and over, but there were also increases in other age groups.

Not coincidentally, the prevalence of obesity, type 2 diabetes and hypertension increased over the time span of these three surveys, the researchers said.

Since the study findings were initially submitted, the authors did additional analysis and found startling results: PAD prevalence in women increased significantly over those six years (from 4.1 percent to 6.3 percent) but decreased in men (from 3.3 percent to 2.8 percent). Over the same period, women also exhibited an increase in the prevalence of obesity; men also experienced an increase but much less of one.

"Asymptomatic PAD is common, and we need to have a high index of suspicion in women and need to look at the risk factors that contribute to it, notably obesity," Sumner said. "We need to assess the protocols and guidelines that currently exist for which the asymptomatic person should be screened. We know that the risk of dying of heart disease with PAD is significantly higher than when individuals don't have PAD, and we need to make sure our existing guidelines reflect the increasing prevalence of this problem and accurately identify this increasing number of high-risk individuals."

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, added: "Here we have an increase in obesity and high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and all these risk factors are associated with an increase in vascular disease. What we really need to understand is, there are a lot of people out there with asymptomatic disease, and we need to screen them as well as for cardiovascular disease. It's the ankle-brachial index. It's a very simple test."

More information

The American Heart Association has more on peripheral artery disease  .

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Silicone breast implants do not increase the risk of cancers, connective tissue diseases, or other serious chronic diseases, according to U.S. researchers.

A team from the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md., and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., reviewed available research on the safety of the implants.

More than a dozen studies evaluating the risk of cancer in women with cosmetic breast implants have been "remarkably consistent" in showing no evidence of an increase in breast cancer or any other type of cancer, the review authors said.

They also noted that a number of studies concluded that there's no link between breast implants and connective tissue diseases (CTDs) -- such as fibromyalgia, systemic lupus erythematosus, and rheumatoid arthritis -- or to neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

There's also no evidence that children born to women with breast implants are more likely to have birth defects or other health problems, the review authors said.

They recommended further studies to investigate the well-documented increase in suicide rates in women after breast implant surgery. The studies should examine whether psychiatric illness in some women is present before, or develops after, breast implant surgery.

The researchers added that future studies should focus only on the increased suicide rate among women with cosmetic breast implants -- the only consistently reported association between health and the implants.

The review is published in the November issue of the journal Annals of Plastic Surgery.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more about breast implants.