MONDAY, Jan. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Obese postmenopausal women who have never used hormone replacement therapy may face an increased risk of ovarian cancer, compared to normal-weight women, a new study suggests.

Interestingly, obese women who have used hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for symptoms of menopause may not face increased risk for this type of malignancy.

The study findings are published in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Cancer.

The take-home message is a familiar one, experts said: Maintain a healthy body weight.

"This is another, very fine epidemiologic study that shows a relationship between obesity and female-related cancers," said Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La. "The two leading causes of cancer in the western world today are tobacco and obesity. We've made enormous progress with tobacco-related malignancies -- it's really stunning. The next wave is obesity-related illness."

Added Dr. Elizabeth A. Poynor, a gynecologic oncologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, "This is yet another health risk that we can talk about with women who are overweight, and yet another reason to lose weight."

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cancer killer of U.S. women and the leading killer among gynecologic malignancies. Only about 37 percent of women with this diagnosis will survive beyond five years, according to background information in the study.

Women who've had children and who've used oral contraceptives appear to have a decreased risk of the disease.

A family history of ovarian cancer along with HRT use is known to contribute to the risk, and there has been some evidence that excess body weight also ups the risk.

For the new study, investigators from the U.S. National Cancer Institute followed almost 95,000 U.S. women, aged 50 to 71, for an average of seven years.

Overall, obese women -- those with a body mass index (BMI) or 30 or above -- had a 26 percent higher chance of developing ovarian cancer than women of normal weight, a figure the researchers said was not statistically significant.

However, the picture was somewhat different among subgroups of women. Obese women who had never used hormone therapy had an 80 percent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer, compared with their normal-weight counterparts. There appeared to be no relationship between BMI and ovarian cancer among women who had used hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms.

Obese women without a family history of the disease had a 36 percent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer, although there was no heightened risk in obese women who did have a family history.

According to the study authors, the findings indicate that obesity may increase ovarian cancer risk through hormonal effects. Specifically, excess fat increases production of estrogen, which may spur the growth of ovarian cancer.

But the picture is likely much more complicated than that, said Dr. Michael A. Bookman, vice president for ambulatory care and clinical research at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

Overall, obese women in the study did not have a notably higher risk for ovarian cancer. The increased risk was only seen in a subgroup of the women, he noted.

"When you do a subset analysis, there's always a risk," Bookman said. "They wave their hands and think maybe this is because estrogen is bad for you, but there are a lot of other things obesity does than create endogenous estrogen, like other growth factors.

"It's interesting that, in women who were exposed to menopausal hormones, there was some evidence that [hormones] actually protected them," he added. "It's, at best, a modest effect and not nearly as strong as the data with endometrial cancer. I'm not a fan of obesity, but I think, in this particular analysis, it's a pretty modest effect. It would be much more convincing if it were significant for the entire population."

Study lead author Dr. Michael Leitzmann, of the National Cancer Institute, said one "possible reason for the observation that obesity might lead to increased ovarian cancer risk in women who have not used HRT versus women who have is that exogenous estrogens supplied by menopausal hormones fail to add further to the high background levels of endogenous estrogens among obese women."

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on ovarian cancer.

SUNDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- An apple a day while you're pregnant may indeed keep the doctor away. But the real beneficiary could be your unborn child.

Recent research suggests that when moms-to-be eat apples during pregnancy, their offspring have lower rates of asthma.

And, mothers who consume fish during pregnancy may lower their child's risk of developing the allergic skin condition called eczema.

"There are influences that occur in utero that can have lasting impact," said Dr. Jennifer Appleyard, chief of allergy and immunology at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit. "More and more, we're finding influences for later health develop earlier than we anticipated."

More than 20 million Americans have asthma, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 6.2 million of those are children.

Eczema is an allergic condition that makes the skin dry and itchy. It's most common in babies and children and is sometimes called atopic dermatitis.

Dutch researchers recently followed 1,253 children from before birth to age 5. Their mothers completed food questionnaires during their pregnancies, and their children's health was assessed with a symptom questionnaire. The children's diets were also assessed.

Women who consumed the most apples during pregnancy -- more than four a week -- had children who were 37 percent less likely to have ever wheezed than children of mothers who had the lowest consumption of apples during pregnancy. Additionally, youngsters born to apple-loving moms were 46 percent less likely to have asthma symptoms and 53 percent less likely to have doctor-confirmed asthma than those whose mothers shunned the fruit.

The mechanism behind apples' apparent protective effect needs further study, but may have something to do with the flavonoids and other antioxidants contained in apples, said Dr. Devang Doshi, director of pediatric allergy and immunology at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.

The study, published in the journal Thorax, also found that mothers who ate fish more than once a week had children who were 43 percent less likely to have eczema than women who never ate fish.

"This was a good study, but we need a lot more evidence still," said Doshi, who pointed out that the children in the study generally had well-balanced, nutritious diets, and that may have played a role as well.

So, what's a pregnant woman to do? "The general consensus is that women should consume a good, well-balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, and not to overindulge in any one food," he said.

Appleyard recommends avoiding nuts, peanuts and shellfish while you're pregnant to reduce the risk of your child developing a food allergy.

While this advice applies to everyone, it may be even more important for those with a family history of allergies. And Appleyard added that women who are vegetarians have to weigh the risks and benefits of following such dietary restrictions.

She agreed that prenatal nutrition is an area that needs a lot more research but suggested that pregnant women might want to "pick your foods wisely, because what you're eating today may not only nourish your body, but may have an impact on your baby's future health."

Appleyard added that for preventing asthma, avoiding cigarette smoke both before and after birth is crucial.

More information

To learn more about allergies and their causes, visit the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

FRIDAY, Dec. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Less TV and more exercise may help reduce incidence of type 2 diabetes, especially among black women, a new report shows.

Researchers from Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center made that conclusion based on a survey of black women, a high-risk group for the disease. The findings were published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The research linked vigorous activity with a reduced risk of diabetes. Those who walked briskly for at least five hours a week had less chance of developing diabetes than those who didn't walk.

"Our results confirm that vigorous activity is protective against type 2 diabetes in African-American women," study author Julie Palmer, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University's School of Public Health and senior epidemiologist at the Slone Center, said in a university news release. "A key public health finding is that brisk walking reduced risk. That is important, because many women don't have the time or place to engage in 'vigorous' physical activity, but most women can find time to walk."

Watching an appreciable amount of television, regardless of the women's level of physical activity, was linked to a greater risk of diabetes, the study found.

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more about type 2 diabetes  .

TUESDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Examining subnetworks of genetic activity in a patient's tumor better predicts the spread of breast cancer than conventional techniques, researchers say.

University of California at San Diego scientists, working with Korean researchers, used bioinformatic algorithms to identify these subnetworks. They then mapped the gene activity to the many networks of signaling pathways and protein complexes that prior research had found in human cells.

The scientists explained that conventional "rapid microarray" technology allows cancers to be classified by gene expression, or activity patterns, but this system is imprecise because cells from a single tumor sample can have genes switched on in some cells (from one part of the tumor) that are inactive elsewhere.

The researchers' new work enabled them to identify subnetworks in which aggregate gene expression patterns can distinguish between patient groups.

They also uncovered many genes associated with breast cancer that had not been identified by previous gene microarray profiles.

The researcher team is now applying its analysis system to other cancers. These insights could give doctors a new tool for diagnosis and prognosis, they say.

The findings are scheduled to be presented Monday at the American Society for Cell Biology's annual meeting, in San Francisco.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about breast cancer  .