Sunday, August 10, 2008

WOMEN AND SOYA LOAF -- Just for Women: Rx for Menopause and Osteoporosis

WOMEN AND SOYA LOAF

Just for Women: Rx for Menopause and Osteoporosis

________________________________________
When you talk about menopause in the United States, the first thing that comes to mind are hot flashes, the quintessential symptom of the “change of life.”

Interestingly, there is no word in Japanese to describe a hot flash. In fact, many studies show that most Japanese women never experience a hot flash, and, in fact, complain of far fewer unpleasant symptoms of menopause than do Western women.

A recent study by Canadian researchers of Japanese women and menopause reported that “the hot flush or flash, seen in the West as the sine qua non of the menopausal woman, was mentioned by only 12 of the 105 women and no one talked about night sweats.” In another study, researchers compared the menopausal experiences of Japanese, Canadian, and U.S. women. The Japanese women had far fewer complaints than did the Western women.

• Nearly 35% of U.S. women and 31% of Canadian women reported having hot flashes, versus only 12.4% of the Japanese women.
• More than 38.1 percent of the American women complained of a lack of energy; only 6% of the Japanese women had the same complaint.
• More than 35% of the U.S. women complained of depression, only 10.3% of the Japanese women said they felt depressed.
• In fact, researchers reported that few Japanese women were on any medication (hormone replacement therapy) for menopause. However, Japanese women did use more herbs and herbal teas.

“Japanese women may actually have fewer menopausal symptoms because of their diet,” says Dr. Herman Adlercreutz, a major researcher in the field of phytoestrogens, “Japanese women eat high amounts of soy foods, and soy foods contain isoflavones. All isoflavonoids are weak estrogens and such high amounts could have (positive) biological effects especially in postmenopausal women with low estrogen levels. [Presence of] high levels of isoflavonoid phyto-estrogens [in large amount] may partly explain why hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms are so infrequent in Japanese women.”

Soy may also help relieve another discomfort associated with menopause: thinning of the vaginal walls. After estrogen levels drop, the lining of the vagina begins to thin, which can result in painful intercourse and a potential for developing infections. Soy may prevent this from happening. A recent study described in the British Medical Journal attempted to see whether eating food rich in phytoestrogens could prevent thinning of the vaginal wall. Postmenopausal women were given three different foods – soy flour, linseed oil, and red clover sprouts – daily for two weeks each. During the soy period, there was a greater increase in the number of cells in the vaginal epithelium than during the other food periods. The research concluded that “patterns of food intake may modulate the severity of the menopause as it is an estrogen deficiency state” (BMJ, 301, October 20, 1990).

Soy for Strong Bones

Research suggests that soy foods may be a useful tool in maintaining strong bones. This is good news, especially for people at risk of developing osteoporosis, a disease characterized by a thinning or wearing down of bone tissue, which leaves the bones vulnerable to factures and breaks. Osteoporosis is a virtual epidemic among elderly, especially older women. In fact, about 15 million Americans – 75% of them women – have osteoporosis. As the population ages, the number is expected to soar.

Osteoporosis is a disease of aging. In young people, bone is constantly being produced by the body. The creation of new bone is a complex process involving the interaction of minerals such as calcium and potassium, and hormones such as estrogen in women and testosterone in men, and vitamin D.

However, at around age forty or so, women especially begin to use up more bone than they can produce. So do men; however, men have more bone mass to begin with, and typically do not lose as much as do women. In fact, on average, postmenopausal women lose about 5% of their bone mass annually, the process being accelerated by a drop in their estrogen levels…

Not all women are at equal risk of developing osteoporosis. Caucasian and Asian women – especially those who are thin-boned and petite – run a much greater risk of osteoporosis than women of African descent.

Although few people consider osteoporosis to be as serious as a disease as heart disease or cancer, in reality it is a leading killer of women. Typically, an older woman falls and injures her hip, a common site of injury. About 15% of all women with hip injuries die shortly after being injured. Within a year, nearly a third will die owing to complications such as a blood clot. Hip injuries are also a major reason why older women wind up in nursing homes.

Paradoxically, even though Asian women are small boned, they have far fewer hip injuries than do Caucasian women. In fact, Japanese women have roughly half the hip injuries of U.S. women, and women in Hong Kong and Singapore fare even better. What’s even more mysterious is the fact that Asian women consume far less dietary calcium than do U.S. women.

Exercise may be one of the reasons why Asian women are spared hip injuries. For example, in traditional Japanese homes people sit on the floor. Having to get up and down dozens of times a day may help a woman develop strong muscles and bones in the hip region. However, diet may also play a small role in helping reduce the rate of hip fractures.

Even though Asian women eat less bone-building calcium, their bodies may better utilize the calcium that they do eat. For one thing, Asian women eat less protein than Western women. Several studies have shown that ¬protein in general, and animal protein in particular, increases urinary excretion of calcium, which means that the body has less calcium to draw upon if it needs it. Although the amount of calcium excreted is very small, over a lifetime it could have a significant effect on available calcium, and that could make a difference in terms of bone mass.

In addition, studies have shown that consumption of soy protein results in far less urinary calcium excretion than does animal protein. In one study conducted at the University of Texas, researchers found that people who ate soy protein lost 50% less calcium through their urine than if they ate animal protein. Since most Asian women eat more soy products than U.S. women, they could be retaining more calcium even though they consume less.

Other studies suggest that the isoflavones in soy may help retain bone mass…

“It looks promising that genistein may have some preventive effect on bone loss”, said Dr. John Anderson of the University of North Carolina, “Our studies suggest that Japanese women may have a lifetime of protection of retaining a bit of more bone at all sites because of dietary soy factor.”

Soy may indeed prove to be a “bone-sparing” food. Given the results of these early studies, it makes sense to include soy food as part of an anti-osteoporosis diet.

However, it should be used along with other bone builders including the following:

1. Calcium. Sources: low-fat yogurt, tofu made with calcium sulfate, canned salmon with bones, almonds, fortified cereals, leafy vegetables;
2. Vitamin D. Without the sunshine vitamin, calcium cannot be absorbed by the body.
3. Phytoestrogens from soy beans.
4. Exercise.
5. Boron. This mineral found in grapes and dried fruit, helps raise the levels of blood estrogens in postmenopausal women, which may help retain calcium.

Avoid these bone breakers:

1. Caffeine increases calcium excretion. Watch the coffee and the caffeinated colas!
2. Smoking increases your risk of developing osteoporosis.
3. Excess alcohol interferes with mineral absorption.
4. Phosphates, found in many soft drinks, can deplete calcium levels.

- Source: Soy Miracle, Dr. Earl Mindell, R. Ph., Ph. D.
- Professor of Nutrition Pacific Western University, Los Angeles, California
________________________________________
Start by taking a taste of
VidaBee’s
Honey Soya Loaf
Size: Usual size of large sliced bread or
loaf bread
Price: P 30.00

Main ingredient: Freshly ground soy flour
Other ingredients:
 Whole grain (wheat/rice) flour –
best for its fiber & vitamins esp. A, B, C & E
 Natural sugar: honey and kinugay/muscovado
No chemically processed sugar which is difficult for our insulin hormones to burn into energy, and which becomes fat deposits in our cells, thus, contributes to obesity-heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
 Unsaturated liquid plant oil, such as soy oil, corn oil, VCO, etc. – safe from CVDs and obesity
No saturated fats such as (a) animal fat, (b) transfat (liquid plant oil hardened through the chemical process of hydrogenation), and (c) synthetic [chemical] fats.

Made-To-Order or Reservations, available at: Cuarteros Nutri-Bread and Cakes
Contact:
Vida – 0910-6447-828 - Jagna (CNC)
Marigen– 0917-9253-453 – Tagbilaran(GSO)
Sheila - 0919-2226-978 – Loon (MBO)

No comments: