FRIDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- Some types of bone-building drugs used to prevent and treat osteoporosis might reduce the risk of breast cancer, according to new research.

The study, which included 6,000 Wisconsin women aged 20 to 69, found that those who took bisphosphonate drugs such as Fosamax, Boniva and Zometa for more than two years were 40 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than were women who did not take the drugs.

However, the protective effective was seen only among women who were not obese.

"Obese women may have elevated estrogen levels, so underlying hormones may influence the ability of bisphosphonates to reduce breast cancer risk," the study's lead author, Polly Newcomb, head of the cancer prevention program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said in a news release from the center.

The study is published online and in the March print issue of the British Journal of Cancer.

Just how bisphosphonate drugs affect the risk for breast cancer is unclear, but there are a number of possibilities.

"These drugs may affect cell function and be important in cell growth and death -- specifically the death of tumors or even premalignant disease," Newcomb said.

Also, previous studies have found that some kinds of bisphosphonates trigger tumor cell death, prevent tumors from establishing a blood supply and prevent cancer cells from binding to each other.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about breast cancer prevention.

THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Healthy eating habits lead to longer survival for ovarian cancer patients, U.S. researchers say.

In a study of 351 women with incident epithelial ovarian cancer, the researchers found that higher total fruit and vegetable consumption, higher vegetable consumption alone, and healthy grain consumption were associated with longer survival. High consumption of "less-healthy" meats was associated with shorter survival.

The findings "suggest that food patterns three to five years prior to a diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer have the potential to influence survival time," Therese A. Dolecek, research associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues wrote in their report published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

"The pre-diagnosis food patterns observed to afford a survival advantage after an epithelial ovarian cancer diagnosis reflect characteristics commonly found in plant-based or low-fat diets. These diets generally contain high levels of constituents that would be expected to protect against cancer and minimize ingestion of known carcinogens found in foods," the researchers wrote.

"The authors provide new evidence that dietary factors, particularly total fruit and vegetable, red and processed meat, and milk intakes may influence ovarian cancer survival," Cynthia A. Thomson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and Dr. David S. Alberts, director of the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, wrote in an accompanying editorial. "These findings corroborate earlier work . . . and are among only a select few studies of dietary associations with ovarian cancer recurrence and/or prognosis despite a significant and growing body of literature suggesting diet may influence ovarian cancer risk."

According to background information in a news release about the study from the journal's publisher, 21,550 new diagnoses of ovarian cancer and 14,600 deaths from the disease were estimated to occur in the United States in 2009. Ovarian cancer is often diagnosed in the late stages and the five-year survival rate is about 45 percent.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about ovarian cancer  .

FRIDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- New measurements for determining dangerous blood sugar levels for pregnant women and their unborn babies mean that two to three times as many women will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, a new study suggests.

Instead of 5 percent to 8 percent of pregnant women being diagnosed with gestational diabetes, the new measurements mean that more than 16 percent would be diagnosed with the condition, said study author Dr. Boyd Metzger, a professor of metabolism and nutrition at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.

The current gestational diabetes measurements are based on blood sugar levels that identified women at high risk for developing diabetes in the future, but didn't take into account other risks to the mother or baby, including increased risk of overweight babies with high insulin levels, early deliveries, cesarean deliveries, and potentially life-threatening preeclampsia (high blood pressure that affects the pregnant women and her unborn child).

Metzger and an international group of researchers studied more than 23,000 women in nine countries and concluded that a fasting blood sugar level of 92 or higher, a one-hour level of 180 or higher on a glucose tolerance test, or a two-hour level of 153 or higher on a glucose tolerance test pose a serious threat to mother and baby.

Previously, those levels were considered in the safe and normal range.

"At these levels, the frequency of having an overweight baby is almost double, the frequency of having preeclampsia is almost double, and the frequency of early delivery is 40 percent greater. These are really substantial differences," Metzger said.

The study appears in the March issue of Diabetes Care.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has more about gestational diabetes.

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Black women are much more likely than whites to develop a potentially deadly weakening of the heart muscle around the time they give birth, a new study suggests.

Symptoms of peripartum cardiomyopathy, which typically occurs in the last month of pregnancy or the first few months after delivery, include shortness of breath, particularly when lying down. The death rate is between 15 percent and 56 percent.

"When it hits, it's totally unexpected because these are young, otherwise healthy women with young children. [They aren't patients] you'd expect to have any sort of health problem, much less heart failure," study corresponding author Dr. Mindy B. Gentry, a cardiologist at the Medical College of Georgia, said in a news release from the school.

In this study, Gentry and colleagues looked at cases of peripartum cardiomyopathy among women who gave birth at an MCG teaching hospital between July 2003 and July 2008. While 55 percent of the women who gave birth were white, 93 percent of the 28 women who developed peripartum cardiomyopathy were black. Of those 28 women, one died and another required a heart transplant.

Being black was the most important predictor of peripartum cardiomyopathy. Other risk factors include high blood pressure, being unmarried, smoking during pregnancy and having more than two previous pregnancies, Gentry said.

The study was published in the current issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Gentry and colleagues said further research is needed to identify genetic and/or environmental factors associated with African descent that may explain the increased risk of peripartum cardiomyopathy in black women.

More information

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation has more about pregnancy and heart failure  .