Menopause

Isoflavones from soy decrease annoying symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats. In my experience they lessen these symptoms by about 80%.

Soy can go a long way to helping a woman who prefers not to take medication to cope with menopausal symptoms. For this reason soy is enjoying increasing use and popularity.

In many of my patients taking traditional estrogen therapy, I have added soy extract to help counteract risk and/or to increase effectiveness. In those who don’t or cannot take estrogen, I urge them to consider isoflavones to protect their long-term health.

Menopause increases the risk of developing heart disease and osteoporosis. Isoflavones can play an important role in preventing these serious problems.

In addition, soy isoflavones seem to improve brain function. In the menopause, blood flow to the brain can decrease 30% due to low estrogen levels. By taking soy phytohormones, there appears to be an increase in blood flow to the brain that is translated into clearer thinking, better memory, a stabilization of the mood and perhaps some protection from the damage of stroke and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Traditional estrogen therapy can stimulate the lining of the uterus, not only causing an unwanted return of periods but also increasing the risk of cancer of the uterus.Soy does not have these risks.

One of the most serious concerns of traditional estrogen therapy is the fear of breast stimulation and increasing the risk of breast cancer. Whether this is in fact true actually remains to be seen. However, what is definite is that soy estrogen therapy not only does not increase the risk of breast cancer, it seems to reduce it.