Clearing the Confusion: Debunking Misconceptions about Soy and its Benefits for Menopause
Poor soy. This is one of those foods that can truly help so many people but has such a bad reputation. There is a big misconception that soy can cause breast cancer or will make breast cancer worse and should be avoided.
I would like to come here and say that this is FALSE!
Soy has a ton of research that gives evidence for its use to REDUCE breast cancer risk. REDUCE! REDUCE!!!!
Here's a meta-analysis, which is kind of like a summary of tons of different trials conducted looking at eating soy and whether it impacted breast cancer risk: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35241506/
The conclusion? "The consumption of soy isoflavones can reduce the risk of breast cancer in pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women."
I used that example because of the fact that it is a meta-analysis and does the work of looking over lots of trials for us, but it's just one of many research papers out there that dispels the myth of soy causing breast cancer.
What about menopause? Will soy make my symptoms worse?
This is a huge topic but the point is that yes, it can help with hot flashes. It can even reduce hot flashes by up to 70% which is pretty great. It doesn't do this overnight though - you have to have about 25 g of soy daily and will see this benefit by about 14 weeks of doing this. I know consistency can be hard but it's so cool that having this in your morning smoothie or having edamame with your lunch can improve hot flashes this much.
Do keep in mind that the research only shows benefit for hot flashes, so if your main 'menopause symptoms' are dry eyes and sleep issues that you won't see improvement from this.
Is there any other benefit for taking soy if I don't have hot flashes but am in menopause?
Yes! Soy can also help improve some of the cardiovascular markers that begin to go awry during menopause. A lot of women don't know that menopause impacts their heart health from the decrease in estrogen so this is something to assess with your doctor and keep on top of.
Soy may also reduce some of the bone loss that happens from menopause onward.
Were you worried about having soy before seeing this blog post?
Yes!
No, I knew it was awesome!
