Good news for menopausal women! The best milk to fight osteoporosis may have already been discovered: soymilk. A recently presented preliminary study shows that soy protein and isoflavones can protect menopausal women from bone weakening and osteoporosis.
Causing 9 million fractures every year worldwide, osteoporosis is a common bone condition wherein bones become brittle and fragile from tissue loss. This bone loss usually occurs to women during the years after menopause, when they produce less of the sex hormone oestrogen-which protects against osteoporosis.
On the other hand, soybean foods contain chemicals known as isoflavones that are very similar in structure to oestrogen. Theoretically, these isoflavones may protect women against bone loss by imitating the action of oestrogen.
This has fuelled the researchers from the University of Hull to observe 200 women in early menopause and give them daily supplement which contains soy protein with 66mg of isoflavones for six months. The researchers documented the changes in the women's bone activity by measuring certain proteins (i.e. βCTX and P1NP) in their blood.
According to lead author Thozhukat Sathyapalan, the women given the soy diet with isoflavones had extensively lower levels of βCTX than the rest of the women who were on soy alone. The results suggest that the rate of bone loss for women on soy diet with isoflavones was slowing down and lowering their risk of developing osteoporosis. Not only that; the women taking soy protein with isoflavones were also observed to have decreased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, soy protein and isoflavones are a harmless and useful option for improving bone health in women during early menopause. The actions of soy come out to imitate that of traditional osteoporosis drugs.
Researchers of the study aim to investigate further the long-term health effects of using soy protein and isoflavones supplements and their benefits afar from bone health.
