soy products Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Reduce Hot Flashes with THIS Dietary Intervention

AHA Publisher — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 07:15:19 +0000

News Staff via NaturalHealth365 – Menopause is a natural part of getting older, signaling the end of a woman’s menstrual cycle. It usually starts when a woman is in her 40’s or 50’s. Unfortunately, menopause can have several uncomfortable side effects, including hot flashes, sleep problems, low energy, and emotional symptoms. However, a recent study indicates that a simple dietary change may significantly reduce aggravating hot flashes. Could This Straightforward Dietary Change Ease Menopausal Hot Flashes? What if you could reduce hot flashes just by changing your diet? A recent study, led by Dr. Neal Barnard and published in Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society, sought to find out. The trial was the Women’s Study for the Alleviation of Vasomotor Symptoms. To assess the link between diet and hot flashes, researchers evaluated postmenopausal women over a 12-week trial period. Some study participants implemented a vegan diet low in fats and a half cup of soybeans daily, while the control group did not change their diets. All participants then recorded the severity and frequency of hot flash symptoms over the course of the study. The group that consumed a vegan, plant-based diet rich in soy experienced a whopping 88% reduction in their hot flashes. Also, those eating a plant-based diet lost an average of 8 pounds and reported improved quality of life. These results indicate that hot flashes can be reduced by simply cutting out toxic animal foods, lowering fat intake, and adding soy to the diet. Of course, we would encourage our readers to eat only non-GMO soy products. Hormone Replacement or Diet Changes? Hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, has long been the treatment of choice for perimenopause symptoms. This is because many symptoms of menopause stem from changes within the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis and disrupted hormone levels. However, HRT can cause its own set of unwanted side effects, if done incorrectly. The key here is to find a qualified healthcare provider to help you with the process to avoid health issues. If menopause symptoms can be mitigated through healthy diet changes, these dangerous side effects can be avoided. And besides possibly reducing hot flashes, plant-based diets have been shown to reduce depression and other chronic health issues. Thus, the new dietary study presents an exciting new direction for researchers to investigate further. Ways to Ease Menopause Symptoms Naturally Changing to a low (healthy) fat, plant-based diet and eating more soy might help reduce your hot flashes. But there are also other ways to ease menopause symptoms without pharmaceuticals. Black cohosh supplements, adequate sleep, regular exercise, and stress reduction practices like yoga can all help. There’s a possibility that plant phytoestrogens could improve menopause symptoms. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring estrogens in several foods, including flax, soybeans, and legumes. Acupuncture and hypnosis are two more therapies that may benefit women in menopause. Menopause is an important and natural phase of life. However, if you’re dealing with uncomfortable menopause symptoms, it’s worth looking into dietary changes and complementary therapies to help ease the transition. Sources for this article include: Medicalnewstoday.com Mayoclinic.org Clinicaltrials.gov To read the original article click here.

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Is Soy Harmful, Harmless, or Helpful for Fibroids?

AHA Publisher — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 07:00:07 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – When it comes to uterine fibroids, is soy harmful, harmless, or helpful? About one in four women will eventually suffer from fibroids, most commonly manifesting as excessively heavy periods, pain, or pressure. Why might you feel pressure? Because, as you can see at 0:17 in my video Should Women with Fibroids Avoid Soy?, you may be carrying around 26 pounds of tumors in your uterus. Fibroids are the most common reason women get hysterectomies, the complete removal of the uterus, a major surgery “associated with disability and death.” All surgery carries risk, though, and the chances of dying within a month of hysterectomy surgery may only be about 1 in 1,200, which makes it among our safest surgeries. As you can see at 0:40 in my video, getting your uterus removed is safer than getting your gallbladder removed, for example. But, of course, you lose the ability to bear children with a hysterectomy, and in total these surgeries cost billions of dollars a year. Yet, despite the high prevalence of fibroids, significant pain and suffering, and huge economic impact, relatively little is understood about the cause and disease process that lead to fibroid tumors. In terms of decreasing fibroids risk, it’s probably a good idea to avoid atomic bomb blasts whenever you can, but what about more easily modifiable risk factors? Consumption of alcohol, particularly beer, is associated with increased risk. Whenever beer is implicated, you may think about the hormonal effects specific to beer, particularly the powerful phytoestrogen found in hops, an essential ingredient in beer. If that phytoestrogen is increasing fibroids risk, what about the phytoestrogens in soy? The Black Women’s Health Study looked into this. Fibroids are two to three times more prevalent among Black women, so it was thought that dairy intake might be contributing to the disparity, given Black women’s higher levels of lactose intolerance. Indeed, dairy consumption was associated with reduced risk, perhaps, thought researchers, because of the calcium or vitamin D content. Was it possible the women were drinking soy milk instead, and that was increasing their fibroid risk? No. Soy intake was found to be unrelated. The same was found in a group of predominantly white women, though researchers did note a protective association with the amount of lignans flowing through their bodies. Lignans are another class of phytoestrogens found predominantly in flaxseeds but also throughout the plant kingdom. It was hard for the researchers to make any generalizations about the soy phytoestrogens, though, because soy consumption by the subjects was rather low across the board. That research was done in Washington state. Japan, however, has the highest per capita soy consumption in the world, which could allow for a bigger spread of intakes. Researchers had “previously found that soya intake was inversely associated with the risk of hysterectomy,” meaning women who consumed more soy had lower hysterectomy rates, “suggesting a potentially protective effect of soya against uterine fibroids,” the main reason women have their uterus removed. This is consistent with in vitro studies that found that the main soy phytoestrogen seemed to inhibit fibroid tissue proliferation in a petri dish. But when the researchers in Japan specifically looked at that connection, they found there was no evidence of a link to soy at all, protective or otherwise. The same was found in a study from China. As you can see at 3:18 in my video, fruit and vegetable intake was associated with a significantly lower risk of fibroids, but soy food consumption was not. A second study out of China published the same year, however, did find a significant association between soy milk intake and fibroids, which was consistent with three alarming case reports of women with symptomatic fibroids reporting an “unusually high intake of soy milk,” “regularly consuming excessive amounts of soy, or having “an extremely high intake of soy” every day for decades. It’s hard to take these cases seriously when nowhere does it specify how much they were consuming. The only quantitative mention was 40 grams of isoflavones, roughly equivalent to 400 gallons of soy milk every day, which would be excessive, but also impossible. The only way to know for sure is to put it to the test—and not just in a population study or anecdotal reports, but to randomize women to two years of soy phytoestrogens in the amount found in three to five cups of soy milk a day. When researchers did just that, no significant effect on the frequency or growth of fibroids was found. KEY TAKEAWAYS About 25 percent of women will suffer from fibroids, which commonly manifest as excessively heavy periods, pain, or pressure and are the most common reason for hysterectomies. Alcohol consumption, especially beer, is associated with greater risk of fibroids. Fibroids are two to three times more prevalent among Black women, who have higher levels of lactose intolerance. Per capita soy consumption is highest in Japan. Researchers had thought soy may have a potentially protective effect against uterine fibroids, but no evidence of a link to soy was found, whether protective or otherwise. Intake of fruits and vegetables was associated with significantly lower risk, but not soy foods. Researchers randomized women to two years of soy phytoestrogens in the amount found in three to five cups of soymilk a day, and did not find any significant effect on the growth or frequency of fibroids. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

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What Does Drinking Soy Milk Do to Hormone Levels?

AHA Publisher — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 07:00:40 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – The vast majority of breast cancers start out hormone-dependent, where estradiol, the primary human estrogen, “plays a crucial role in their breast cancer development and progression.” That’s one of the reasons why soy food consumption appears so protective against breast cancer: Soy phytoestrogens, like genistein, act as estrogen-blockers and block the binding of estrogens, such as estradiol, to breast cancer cells, as you can see at 0:24 in my video How to Block Breast Cancer’s Estrogen-Producing Enzymes. Wait a second. The majority of breast cancers occur after menopause when the ovaries have stopped producing estrogen. What’s the point of eating estrogen-blockers if there’s no estrogen to block? It turns out that breast cancer tumors produce their own estrogen from scratch to fuel their own growth. As you can see at 1:03 in my video, “estrogens may be formed in breast tumors by two pathways, namely the aromatase pathway and sulfatase pathway.” The breast cancer takes cholesterol and produces its own estrogen using either the aromatase enzyme or two hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzymes. So, there are two ways to stop breast cancer. One is to use anti-estrogens—that is, estrogen-blockers—like the soy phytoestrogens or the anti-estrogen drug tamoxifen. “However, another way to block estradiol is by using anti-enzymes” to prevent the breast cancer from making all the estrogen in the first place. And, indeed, there are a variety of anti-aromatase drugs in current use. In fact, inhibiting the estrogen production has been shown to be more effective than just trying to block the effects of the estrogen, “suggesting that the inhibition of estrogen synthesis is clinically very important for the treatment of estrogen-dependent breast cancer.” It turns out that soy phytoestrogens can do both. Using ovary cells taken from women undergoing in vitro fertilization, soy phytoestrogens were found to reduce the expression of the aromatase enzyme. What about in breast cancer cells, though? This occurred in breast cancer cells, too, and not only was aromatase activity suppressed, but that of the other estrogen-producing enzyme, as well. But this was in a petri dish. Does soy also suppress estrogen production in people? Well, as you can see at 2:34 in my video, circulating estrogen levels appear significantly lower in Japanese women than Caucasian American women, and Japan does have the highest per-capita soy food consumption, but you can’t know it’s the soy until you put it to the test. Japanese women were randomized to add soy milk to their diet or not for a few months. Estrogen levels successfully dropped about a quarter in the soy milk supplemented group. Interestingly, as you can see at 3:04 in my video, when the researchers tried the same experiment in men, they got similar results: a significant drop in female hormone levels, with no change in testosterone levels. These results, though, are in Japanese men and women who were already consuming soy in their baseline diet. So, the study was really just looking at higher versus lower soy intake. What happens if you give soy milk to women in Texas? As you can see at 3:29 in my video, circulating estrogen levels were cut in half. Since increased estrogen levels are “markers for high risk for breast cancer,” the effectiveness of soy in reducing estrogen levels may help explain why Chinese and Japanese women have such low rates of breast cancer. What’s truly remarkable is that estrogen levels stayed down for a month or two even after the subjects stopped drinking soy milk, which suggests you don’t have to consume soy every day to have the cancer protective benefit. Wait, soy protects against breast cancer? Yes, in study after study after study—and even in women at high risk. Watch my video BRCA Breast Cancer Genes and Soy for the full story. What about if you already have breast cancer? In that case, see Is Soy Healthy for Breast Cancer Survivors? And what about GMO soy? Get the facts in GMO Soy and Breast Cancer. Okay, then, Who Shouldn’t Eat Soy? Watch my video and find out. To read the original article click here. For more article from Dr. Greger click here.

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