London: A compound found in red wine and grape skin, known to stave off heart attacks, also halts breast cancer in its tracks.

Lab tests have shown that resveratrol blocks the growth of the hormone oestrogen and aborts the growth of breast cancer.

Study leader Sebastiano Ando, from the University of Calabria in Italy, said: "Resveratrol is a potential pharmacological tool to be exploited when breast cancer become resistant to the hormonal therapy."

Resveratrol is also found in blueberries, peanuts and cranberries. It works by blocking the way oestrogen combines with DNA in a woman's body to spread tumour cells, according to the Daily Mail.

Ando and colleagues found that they could cut the growth of breast cancer cells dramatically with resveratrol, while it left normal cells unharmed.

Additional experiments revealed the effect was related to a drastic reduction of oestrogen receptor levels caused by resveratrol itself.

Toronto: Red wine, popularly touted as a remedy for a host of medical condtions, has no protective qualities to prevent heart disease, says a new study.

"In particular, red wine has no special, protective qualities when it relates to cardiovascular disease," said Kathy Bell, CEO, Heart Foundation (Victoria).

"After reviewing all the scientific evidence, it appears any positive effects of alcohol in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease have been hugely overestimated.

"The Heart Foundation does not recommend red wine or other types of alcoholic drinks to prevent or treat cardiovascular disease.

"To reduce your lifetime risk of alcohol-related harm, you should drink no more than two standard drinks on any day," added Bell, according to a Heart Foundation statement.

More than half of all alcohol-related deaths globally are from diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer or liver cirrhosis.

On a global scale, 545,000 people died of alcohol-related cardiovascular disease in 2004. In Australia, five percent of all cancers are caused by alcohol, including one in five breast cancers.

London: Many working mothers in Britain send off their children to school despite sickness because they are unable to take time off looking after them, a study has found.

In a study, the researchers found four out of ten employed mums have sent their child to school when he or she wasn't feeling well because they felt unable to take the day off, Daily Times reported.

A staggering 80 percent of mothers participating in the study said people don't understand how hard it is to juggle things when a child falls ill.

And 23 percent of mums said they would rather send their sick child to school and receive a phone call to collect them than automatically take the day off.

The study also found around one in six mothers have been made to feel 'guilty' by their boss after taking time off to look after a poorly child.

The report also revealed 27 percent of the working mums polled said they were worried of losing their job if they took too much time off for child care.

One in five mums said they felt guilty handing over work to colleagues whenever their child falls ill during a shift. One of ten of the 2,000 working mums polled said they had received a written warning.

The statistics emerged following a study carried out by supplement brand Haliborange.

Spokeswoman Susanne Wright said: "Taking extra days off in term time can be a real struggle especially in the current economic climate when people may be worried about their job security."

About one fourth of the women said they worried about their work load when they suddenly have to drop everything to collect a sick child from school.

Despite this, 86 percent of the females polled admitted that sick kids need their mothers around more than anyone.

London: Nearly half of the British men face the risk of turning obese within next 20 years, with women closely following them facing a similar risk of turning overweight by 2030, says an international study.

The study states four in ten British women may turn overweight.

Overall, an extra 11 million Britons would be clinically obese – so fat that it risks their health – taking the total to 26 million, Daily Mail reported.

Besides, the cost to health services of coping with obesity-linked problems would rise by £2billion (over $3 billion) a year.

It also warns that almost half a million more people could suffer heart disease, with nearly 700,000 extra cases of diabetes and 130,000 more cancer sufferers.

The British and American experts behind the analysis have blamed abundant energy-dense food, too little exercise and lack of action by policymakers.

They say obesity levels among men could rise from around 19 percent to between 41 and 48 percent.

The proportion of obese women is predicted to increase from 26 percent to between 35 and 43 percent.

The figures, published in The Lancet medical journal, were produced by a team including Klim McPherson of Oxford University and US researchers at Columbia University.

London: British women are more likely to develop cancer by the age of 75 than the average European woman, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said in a latest research.

On an average, one-fifth of women across Europe will develop cancer by the age of 75. But in Britain, around a quarter of women will suffer from a form of cancer. This is because of growing rates of obesity and alcohol consumption in the country, Sky News reported.

Though experts say genetics play a large role in people getting cancer, they also believe a third of the most common forms could be avoided if people eat healthy food and do exercises.

Being physically active and eating a healthy "plant-based diet", without too much salt or red and processed meat, can make a difference.

For breast cancer – the most common in women – experts say around four in 10 cases could be prevented purely through lifestyle changes.

"As a country, we tend to be more overweight than the European average and we tend to drink more alcohol; so it is not entirely surprising that the results are what they are," Richard Evans from the World Cancer Research Fund was quoted as saying.

Paul Moss, head of the Cancer Research UK Centre, said: "We think a lot about heart disease but we tend not to think too much about the cancer risk when it comes to diet."