TUESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Men who drink a moderate amount of red wine may lower their risk of lung cancer, even if they smoke, researchers report.

"An antioxidant component in red wine may help to prevent lung cancer," said lead researcher Chun Chao, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation. "The findings provide an impetus for future research to find out if there is something in red wine that may help to either prevent or treat lung cancer."

But the researchers cautioned that the findings don't mean that it's OK to smoke.

For the study, Chao's group collected data on 84,170 men who participated in the California Men's Health Study. Among these men, the researchers identified 210 cases of lung cancer.

The researchers found that there was, on average, a 2 percent lower risk of lung cancer associated with each glass of red wine consumed per month.

The greatest reduction was among men who smoked and drank one to two glasses of red wine a day. These men lowered their risk for lung cancer by 60 percent, Chao's group found.

The reduction wasn't as pronounced among nonsmokers who drank one to two glasses of red wine a day. And no reduction in risk for lung cancer was associated with white wine, beer or liquor, the researchers said.

Despite the findings, Chao warned against thinking that smoking and drinking red wine can actually prevent lung cancer.

"Men who smoke should stop smoking," she said. "Even men who drink one or two glasses of red wine per day still face a greater risk of lung cancer than do nonsmokers. This study should not be used as an excuse to drink more red wine. Moderation is always the best course."

The findings were published in the October issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Dr. Leonard Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer, doesn't think that one study proves that red wine will protect you from lung cancer.

"It's an interesting study, and it raises interesting questions about whether or not there is a cancer protective effect in red wine," he said. "It is important that this be looked at further to see if that association holds up."

Lichtenfeld noted that there have been previous reports of a benefit of red wine for cancer prevention that didn't pan out. "Before we get overly excited about this, we really need to see these effects replicated," he said.

"Clearly, we aren't recommending that smokers go out and start consuming large amounts of red wine as a potential protection from getting lung cancer," he added. "There are other research reports that show that any alcohol, including red wine, can increase the risk of other cancers such as breast cancer."

More information

For more on lung cancer, visit the National Cancer Institute.

TUESDAY, Sept. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Older men with early-stage prostate cancer who are given hormone therapy before radiation seed implant therapy face a 20 percent greater risk of dying than those who get radiation treatment alone, new research suggests.

Focusing on men over the age of 70, the study summed up the risks of death from any cause linked to androgen-deprivation therapy. Such treatment is sometimes given before radiation treatment to lower male hormone levels, shrink the prostate, and retard cancer growth. Brachytherapy itself involves the insertion of small radioactive seeds into the prostate to destroy cancer cells.

"We know that hormone therapy has a lot of side effects," noted study author Dr. Amy M. Dosoretz, a radiation oncology resident with the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program in Boston. "Depression, fatigue and anemia, among others. Yet it can be worth it, because it has a significant benefit for many patients. But for some patients, the risks may outweigh the benefits. And here, we found that in this particular group of patients -- early-stage prostate cancer patients over 70 -- there was an increased risk for mortality."

Dosoretz and her colleagues were expected to present their findings Tuesday at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting, in Boston.

The team's risk assessment is based on a mortality analysis involving more than 1,700 early-stage, localized prostate cancer patients. The men were between the ages of 70 and 91, and received either hormone and brachytherapy treatments or brachytherapy alone between 1991 and 2005.

For those who received hormone therapy, treatment lasted three and a half months on average.

The authors found that undergoing such hormonal intervention was associated with an increased risk of dying from all causes. Being older and having a more aggressive form of prostate cancer was similarly associated with an increased risk of dying from all causes.

"But we still don't know exactly why there's an increased risk for mortality for these patients," Dosoretz cautioned. "So, we need to look into this important issue further, with randomized trials that take in all the bias. Meanwhile, when deciding about hormone therapy treatment, it's important -- especially among elderly men who have early-stage prostate cancer -- to really weigh the benefits and risks."

Dr. Charles J. Ryan, a urologic cancer specialist and an assistant clinical professor of medicine in the division of hematology/oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, agreed.

"We have a pretty good sense that hormone therapy can increase the relative risk for cardiac risk, diabetes and some of the major problems that are likely to kill patients with prostate cancer," Ryan noted. "However, here, the researchers do not address prostate-cancer specific mortality but rather all-cause mortality. And it does a disservice to what hormone therapy can do well to ignore the fact that there have been several studies going back years that show that hormone therapy in addition to radiation improves survival for high-risk patients."

"So, basically, the decision with what to do with hormone therapy needs to be taken in the context of risk," Ryan said.

More information

For additional details on early-stage prostate cancer treatment, visit the National Cancer Institute.