Soy No Help with Bone Loss, Hot Flashes
Posted 8/26/2011
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Many women are irritated/bothered/tortured (pick your verb) by hot flashes during and after breast cancer. Many of us also worry about bone loss, both due to normal post-menopausal changes and to the use of AIs. We also know that we need to avoid estrogen, so some of the usual supplements are not advisable. This is from BreastCancer.org, a commentary on a recent study about the use of soy to treat bone loss and hot flashes. Bottom line: it didn't help.
Here is the beginning and then a link:
Soy No Help for Bone Loss, Hot Flashes
2011-08-08T04:32:53-04:00
Kristina Fiore
What breastcancer.org says about this article..Soy No Help for Bone Loss, Hot Flashes
When estrogen levels drop, either as a normal part of the aging process or because of breast cancer treatment, a woman is in menopause. Menopausal side effects can include hot flashes and night sweats. Over time, lower estrogen levels can weaken bones and may lead to osteoporosis.
For some women, hot flashes affect quality of life so much that they're considering medicine to ease them. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is one option. Still, there is strong evidence that HRT can substantially increase a woman's breast cancer risk and can increase the risk of breast cancer recurrence (the cancer coming back) or progressing in women already diagnosed with breast cancer.
So women and doctors have been looking for other ways to manage menopausal symptoms.
Soy foods have a lot of isoflavones, plant compounds that have a weak estrogen-like effect. Isoflavones are also called phytoestrogens. Because isoflavones are similar to estrogen, some doctors have thought that taking soy isoflavones might help ease hot flashes and help protect against bone loss after menopause.
But a study has found that taking isoflavone tablets every day for 2 years didn't help ease hot flashes or prevent bone loss. The research was published in the August 8-22, 2011 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
http://www.breastcancer.org/tips/menopausal/new_research/20110808.jsp
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