Sue Richards, regular Canadian gal, heats up as her reproductive Best Before Date expires.
Friday, 31 March 2006
Finally. After dutifully but not consistently drinking and eating soy without really understanding why, the proverbial light bulb went on. This thanks to a presentation titled The Role of Soy Isoflavones in the Management of Menopause by Dr. Alison M. Duncan at the Menopause Symposium.
I will try to regurgitate the goods, figuratively speaking.
Soy contains phytoestrogens…phyto meaning plant and estrogen meaning the hormone. When eaten, these phytoestrogens are able to give us soy consumers estrogenic effects. Estrogenic means like estrogen. Phytoestrogens exist in a variety of foods. The soy version is called Isoflavones.
Estrogen loss, which typically arrives farther into peri-menopause and closer to the Full Monty Menopause experience affects our cognitive function. That would be our thinking. It also is the major player behind our double bill performance of Hot Flash and the Night Sweats, heart disease risk, Osteoporosis (bone loss/density) and Breast Cancer risk.
Soy Isoflavones can be absorbed and metabolized by our body, but is considerably weaker than our own, body made estrogen.
Apparently researchers have observed while 60 - 80% of Western women have hot flashes, only 20% of Asia women do. One of the key differences between these two worlds is diet and particularly the amount of soy that is consumed on a daily basis.
There have been a number of studies, many reported by Dr. Duncan during her talk at the symposium. I will admit to glazing over as numbers and graphs appeared on the power point presentation. Science and I parted ways after my first attempt at the subject in Grade 9. It was the frog dissection that did me in. To this day I flash back when anything remotely scientific gets dragged into the conversation.
Fortunately, Dr. Duncan knew that she was speaking to the likes of me so eventually cut to the chase with a Take Home Message regarding Isoflavones and the aforementioned symptoms of menopause. So we’ll go there shall we?
Bottom line: Isoflavones appear to decrease hot flashes in some clinical studies. There is no apparent benefit to taking larger doses of Isoflavones. Not all studies were able to show an effect beyond the placebo …..placebo being the group in a study that think they’re taking the medicine or substance being studied when in fact they’re talking a sugar pill.
Another bottom line: When it comes to cognitive function, the message is slightly more compelling. Isoflavones may improve cognitive function.’Think Tofu’ could be the new slogan.
Bottom line farther down: There is a new health claim that recommends 25 grams of soy food per day (about 1 cup of soy milk or 1/2 cup of tofu) to help reduce the risk of heart disease, which tends to spike as the March of Menopause continues and our age increases.
Bottom line below the bottom line: Our bone health gets a boost from Soy. Unlike our minds, we want dense bones. Fractured hips and brittleness do not sound fun.
At the bottom of all the bottom lines: No study reports an increase of breast cancer risk, yet women who have breast cancer may want to avoid large amounts of soy due to the fact that some breast cancers are spurred on by estrogen. Further, there is some suggestion that consuming soy while a teenager may offer breast cancer prevention.
Two things I’ll note about soy. Soy crops are among the most heavily sprayed with pesticides. Genetically modified soy (GMO) is common and highly contentious. We do not have sufficient data to determine the health affects of GMO’s. It’s a bit of an experiment in fact.
So, I’m going to carry on with my soy routine. I buy organic tofu and soy milk. Tofu gets plopped in something once a week and soy milk graces my cereal or blended shake daily unless of course I go to Eggcettera for breakfast. Then it’s Eggs Benedict all the way.
Sue Richards
Tags: My Menopause Blog, blog,Sue Richards, peri-menopausal, menopausal, menopause relief, water, information on menopause, HRT, menopause, funny blog, soy, isoflavones The Change.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Have you ever heard about the bad side of soy? Theres actually quite a lot out there about it, which I can’t even begin to remember, but I don’t ever think of soy as a health food anymore (of course, that doesn’t stop me from eating it every day, but lets not talk about that).
The thing is, there’re different kinds of soy. You have your unfermented soy, like tofu and soy milk, and you have your fermented soy, like tamari and tempeh. Fermented soy=good. Unfermented soy=bad.
In Asia, most of the soy thats consumed is either fermented, or eaten with, hmmm…. I think its fish and seaweed.
Okay, see, our bodies cannot digest unfermented soy. Theres some sort of coating (oh, I think its the seedcoat) that doesn’t go away with regular cooking (like it does with other beans). So this seedcoat thing isn’t good for us–I think it makes us unable to digest soy, but there might be more to it than that. Fermented soy, on the other hand, is digestable becuase fermentation breaks down that seedcoat. So, just to reiterate, Fermented soy=good. Unfermented soy=bad.
Okay, thats not a totally scientific comment, but thats the gist of it. I highly recommend you google it. When I did, I was pretty blown away.
Aimee
March 31st, 2006 at 8:33 pm
Interesting. I do not recall any mention of fermented/unfermented soy during the talk. As you suggested, I Googled it and yes, lots of stuff came up.
Scientific studies tend to zone in on a single point rather than taking in the entire picture. As an example, I did raise the question of organic which was not considered in the tests.
Bottom of all bottom lines: There is no single perfect answer. To anything.
Thanks Aimee.
Sue
April 2nd, 2006 at 7:18 pm
I don’t think organic has anything to do with it. Its a property of the legume, no matter how you grow it, at least as far as I can tell.
Aimee
April 3rd, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I’ll try again. I realize that organic, fermented, non-fermented soy are not directly related to one another. My point was that the studies did not nor do they seem to take multiple things about the soy, either how it’s grown or how it’s processed for consumption, into consideration. They studied soy. Period.
Studies are not as comprehensive as we might think.
Sue
April 15th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Hi, Sue-
I agree with you about studies - they rarely look at the whole picture. The problem with fermented soy, or other fermented products, is that they aggravate conditions like Candida. The factor about the seed coating would only apply to cooked soy that isn’t processed. I would think that the process that makes soy usable as milk or tofu would break down the bean and make it digestible.
April 17th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Like Aimee I’m in agreement that fermented soy is a healthful food and that unfermented soy is not a healthful food on a regular basis.
Unfermented soy is very difficult to digest unless it is intensively processed (using very high heat I think). Like other highly processed foods it’s not good to consume daily. If you don’t believe this about soy try cooking and eating soybeans in the way you would chickpeas or kidney beans. Better yet, try making soy milk at home. Then research what has to be done to commercial soy to make it palatable and digestible.
When all is said and done (and given there is alot of conflicting research), it’s the highly processed nature of commercial soy that tells me to not eat it regularly.
My favourite soy critiquing links:
http://www.susunweed.com/Weed_letter_Oct-01.htm#surprise
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/
Plus Susun Weed’s article on safe use of phytoestrogens:
http://www.menopause-metamorphosis.com/An_Article-phytoestrogens.htm
I don’t think there is a problem with eating tofu periodically. I just don’t believe that menopausal women (or anyone for that matter) need soy daily.
Re fermented soy and candida: tamari and miso are problems if one’s approach is to starve the candida. However if one instead nourishes overall gut flora then fermented soy can be a useful and healing food for re-establishing digestive equilibrium because it assists the bugs that keep candida in check.
Sue, I think your blog is awesome so hope there is room for disagreement
April 18th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Hi Kate,
Plenty of room for all the perspectives on this blog Kate. And for the record, I don’t disagree with Aimee.
That’s for taking the time to offer such a detailed comment.
Sue