SHANGHAI -- A female entrepreneur has topped a list of China's richest people, the first time a woman has headed the list in the country. Zhang Yin, 49-year-old founder and chairwoman of Guangdong-based Nine Dragons Paper Industries Co., Ltd., has amassed a fortune of 27 billion yuan ($U.S. 3.375 billion).

"She is the wealthiest self-made woman in the world," said Rupert Hoogewerf who set up the list known as the Huran Report in 1999. According to Hoogewerf, Zhang is richer than the U.S. television host Oprah Winfrey and author of the Harry Potter series JK Rowling. Zhang Yin was born to a soldier's family in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province as the eldest sister of seven. She went to Hong Kong in 1985 and started her career in waste paper trading with 30,000 yuan.

Woman's work may impact breast cancer risk

OTTAWA -- A woman's career choice may impact her risk of developing breast cancer, a Canadian study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found.

Researchers looked at personal, medical, and detailed occupational histories of 1,100 Canadian women, including 564 who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, hoping to identify occupations linked to increased breast cancer risk. Those with cancer, the data showed, were almost three times more likely to have worked on farms, many during adolescence when breast tissue is believed to be vulnerable to toxic exposures, researchers said in a statement.

Early heart attack survival worse for women

NEW YORK -- Gender does not influence long-term heart attack survival, according to findings published in the European Heart Journal. However, in the short-term, while still hospitalized for the heart attack, women are more likely to die than men. "Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in women in western society, and currently more women die of cardiovascular disease than men,"

Dr. Vernon V. S. Bonarjee, of the University of Bergen, Stavanger, Norway, and colleagues write. Although the frequency of heart attack increases sharply with age, women are less likely to develop a heart attack than are men at any age.

Botox injections may relieve pelvic pain in women

NEW YORK -- In women with chronic pelvic pain due to pelvic floor spasms, Botox injections seem to reduce pressure and relieve some of the pain, according to a new study. Pelvic floor spasms occur when muscles in the pelvis contract tightly and unexpectedly. In addition to the distressing pain that typically occurs, affected women can experience urinary problems, and sensations of pressure or heaviness in the lower abdomen.