Ten years ago, soy products were recommended to postmenopausal women to reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. New research indicates that soy may not help as much as previously thought, and a re-evaluation by the FDA may challenge soy producers’ claims about their products as heart healthy.

Many women experience sharp increases in LDL levels during menopause when their bodies no longer produce estrogen. More women also see a hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) and an increased risk of heart disease.

Soy products contain isoflavens, natural compounds that mimic estrogen.  These are supposed to increase estrogen levels, and thus improve cholesterol. Keeping cholesterol in check can help coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death in American women.

For the study, 62 women under age 65 with moderate-high cholesterol were asked to increase either soy or casein (milk protein), intake for one year. While HDL (good) cholesterol levels increased slightly for women consuming soy, they experienced little or no change in LDL levels.

“The aim of this study was to examine the effects of soy protein consumption on heart disease risk in postmenopausal women,” authors of the study wrote. “These findings, as well as those from other studies, lend credence to the decision of the Food and Drug Administration to reevaluate the soy protein health claim issued a decade ago.”

Learn more about heart health, or read the study's abstract in Menopause.

Consuming lots of protein was previously thought to take a toll on bone health, but new information from Seattle’s Group Health Research Institute has medical professionals re-thinking the diet advice they give women. As it turns out, eating lots of protein may not be so bad.

The research team, led by Jeannette Beasley, monitored the protein intake of 560 pre-menopausal women. Protein could be animal or vegetable-based.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the average percentage of protein from calories that should be consumed daily is 10-35 percent. The women, aged 14 to 40, consumed between 6 and 28 percent, placing them in the “high protein” category.

“The range of protein intakes for optimizing bone health among pre-menopausal women is unclear,” authors noted in the study. “Protein is a major constituent of bone, but acidic amino acids may promote bone resorption.”

Participants were checked annually for changes in bone mineral density (BMD). According to the report, the average BMD was similar for all participants regardless of protein consumption. Women with low vegetable protein intake, however, tended to have a slightly lower BMD.

“For every percentage increase of energy from protein, no significant longitudinal changes in BMD were observed at any anatomic site over the follow-up period,” study authors concluded. “Data from this study suggest that a higher protein intake does not have an adverse effect on bone in pre-menopausal women.”

Beasley says that protein provides a small benefit to bone health, but that these benefits may not reduce fractions in the long run. “Findings in young women could be different from those in older women because bone mass is still building up before age 30,” Beasley told Reuters.

The important thing is to keep an eye on bone health, get checked regularly, and to keep your meals balanced. Beef, chicken, fish, pork, and tofu? Yes, yes and yes! As long as it’s complemented by plenty of vegetable protein.

Fast food and inactivity aren’t the only culprits for today's high obesity rates. A new class of EDCs (endocrine-disrupting chemicals) known as obesogens may be partly to blame.

Obesogens are chemicals that are believed to mimic and interrupt regular hormone function. Researchers say these chemicals can cause weight gain and lead to other major health problems like heart disease, diabetes or endocrine and metabolic disorders.

Obesogens can be found in food packaging, plastics, pesticides and chemicals, as well as some cosmetics. They include PCBs, BPA and pthalates. They can alter genes and pose as hormones that help regulate the body’s metabolism. Take estrogen, for example.

Estrogen, the “female hormone,” typically causes women to gain weight during menopause. When obesogens enter the body, they act like estrogen, reprogramming cells to become fat cells. The body will work to convert calories into fat cells, which produce more estrogen. If what researchers say about obesogens is true, diet and exercise may not be enough to lose weight.

Professor Bruce Blumberg, a biologist from the University of California-Irvine who coined the term, says the causes of obesity are complex, but that the problem is more prevalent in America. He has an idea why: “Elsewhere, the consumption of prepackaged foods is much lower,” he explained in a UCI press release. “Food is grown and eaten locally, and people are far less exposed to food additives and chemicals. These are all contributing factors.”

Obesogen research is a fairly new thing. It’s in its early stages now, but as more scientists accept the idea, more is discovered about the effects these chemicals play in interrupting endocrine function.

Until then, Blumberg suggests ditching the Tupperware. “Use glass and stainless steel instead of plastics to store fluids and foods,” he says, “and try to get locally grown produce, organic if possible.”

If a few vanity pounds are getting you down, it shouldn’t be about the ones on your hips. What you should be worrying about is visceral fat, which is the fat that sometimes surrounds the abdominal organs.

More women than men experience an increase in this type of fat, especially in the time following menopause. It is often responsible for the change in a woman’s body to an apple shape. In men, it may manifest itself as a “beer belly.”

Sometimes referred to as abdominal obesity, this fat is more dangerous than the subcutaneous fat that lies just under the skin. Fat cells produce hormones, including ones that can cause insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes. Visceral fat is also thought to increase the risk of heart disease, metabolic problems, and high blood pressure. It has also been linked to breast cancer.

It is quite possible for a person with a healthy weight and relatively trim waistline to have significant amounts of visceral fat. It can be hard to see because of where it lies; in some cases it can only be detected with an MRI.

According to the Mayo Clinic, lack of exercise and low metabolism isn’t necessarily the culprit. The problem, they say, may be genetics. If your family has a history of gaining weight around the middle, it may be a challenge for you, too. In women, hormonal changes during menopause also may cause a change in how fat is broken down and stored.

Rather than calculating your BMI, Mayo Clinic suggests simply measuring your waistline. A waist measurement of 35 inches or more, the clinic says, indicates an unhealthy concentration of abdominal fat.

One of the best things you can do for your body is exercise regularly, and, luckily, visceral fat responds well to working out. Daily moderate exercise along with strength training may be your best bet to battling the bulge.

A certain type of unsaturated fatty acid, CLA, and safflower oil may be key ingredients in helping postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes drop pounds and improve blood sugar, or blood glucose, levels, according to research from Ohio State University (OSU).

After menopause, many women experience weight gain, which increases the risk of developing metabolic conditions. For women with type 2 diabetes, weight loss and glucose management can become extremely difficult to manage. Researchers found that both CLA and safflower oil proved particularly beneficial to postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes.

CLA, conjugated linoleic acid, is an unsaturated fatty acid found primarily in meat and dairy products of cows, goats and sheep. CLA has been known to help people wishing to build muscle, lose weight and prevent heart disease.

Safflower oil is a plant-based oil similar to sunflower oil that is used in cooking oils, salad dressings and some margarines. Safflower oil, SAF, is a colorless and flavorless source of omega-6 fatty acids, and has been known to promote healthier skin and hair, reduce cholesterol and boost the immune system.

Thirty-five women completed a 36-week study comparing the effects of CLA and safflower oil on weight and body mass. Each supplement was consumed for sixteen weeks. Participants took roughly two teaspoons of either oil daily.

CLA began to cut body fat and reduce BMI after just eight weeks. “This magnitude of reduction has not been reported in an intervention that used a linoleic acid-rich oil,” wrote lead authors Martha Belury and Leigh Norris, both from the Department of Human Nutrition at OSU.

Safflower oil, originally meant for baseline comparison, yielded exciting changes of its own. Safflower oil reduced trunk mass and increased lean muscle mass, resulting in an average loss of 6.3 percent of body fat. It also reduced insulin resistance and fasting blood glucose levels.

“I never would have imagined such a finding,” Belury says. “This study is the first to show that such a modest amount of linoleic acid-rich oil may have a profound effect on body composition in women."

Belury and associates are pleased with the results of their study, and hope to explore the effects further. They believe that CLA and safflower oil show great promise in weight and glucose management for women with type 2 diabetes.

“It is possible that further reductions in BMI are achievable with a longer length of supplementation,” the authors wrote. “The use of lower doses of CLA over longer durations of intervention may prove to be an effective weight-loss aid."

The study appears online in The Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

A follow-up study in Washington shows that although migraines are a real pain, they may spell relief for women at risk for developing breast cancer.

Dr. Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash. originally conducted this study with colleagues in 2008. Their original study linked clinically diagnosed migraines with a lower risk for both invasive ductal and invasive lobular breast cancer.

Breast cancer and migraines are both hormonally related conditions—migraines often resulting from unstable or changing hormone levels, especially estrogen. For women, who are 2-3 times more likely to experience migraines than men, this time is typically during the early days of menstruation.

The study found that postmenopausal women with a history of migraines had 32-33% reduced chance of developing breast cancer. These statistics proved to be even more consistent in subtypes of breast cancer that are estrogen-receptor and progesterone-receptor positive.

When the original study results were released last fall, the sample group consisted of roughly 3,500 postmenopausal Seattle women between the ages of 55-74. This time, however, Dr. Li and his colleagues were able to paint a much better picture. “Having a larger and more diverse study in its underlying population helps in replicating the findings,” Li says.

By more than doubling the sample size, expanding testing to women of different menopausal stages  (this time including ages 35-64), and adding four locations in Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Philadelphia, researchers were able to define breast cancer’s connection to migraines more clearly.

In addition to age and menopausal status, many breast cancer risk factors also trigger migraines. Such factors include smoking, alcohol consumption and use of exogenous hormones (such as birth control). These risk factors, however, did not increase the likelihood of women with a history of migraines.

According to the second study, rates among the control and case groups were relatively unchanged, despite differences in use of prescription migraine medications and age at migraine diagnosis. Even among those who did not avoid these triggers, women with a history of migraines were still 26% less likely to develop breast cancer than those without.

It is not clear how migraines “protect” against breast cancer, but researchers hope to further examine the role of hormones, NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) and other medications in the development of breast cancer.

The best way to reduce breast cancer risk is to check regularly. For more information on breast cancer and how to do a self-examination, visit NationalBreastCancer.org.

You can also check out Helia's  Breast Cancer Community!

 

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