Soy! Oh Boy!
It’s Wednesday, meaning that it’s time for me to debunk a popular myth about menopause or provide you with a bit of inspiration for hump day.
Tongues have been wagging a lot about soy isoflavones (plant-based compounds with estrogen-like properties) with the most disturbing reports linking high doses to genetic damage and stimulation of estrogen receptors to promote breast cancer.
So, do you need to be worried if your current menopause diet includes lots of soy? (You can read more about the potential benefits of soy here.) Evidently, the answer is NO!
According to a newly published study in the Menopause Journal, unconjugated forms of soy isoflavones are safe and well tolerated at daily doses as high as 900 mg/day. (Unconjugated forms are more readily absorbed into the bloodstream.)
In this study, researchers administered soy isoflavones or placebo to 30 postmenopausal women for 84 days. The goals of the study were to measure DNA damage, cell death and any changes that would indicate that estrogen was stimulated (which might lead to tumor growth). The researchers found no indication that high (900 mg) daily doses of soy caused DNA damage, increased cell death or affected estrogen. What’s more, any side effects (ocurring in only 1 woman) were mild or moderate in severity.
Granted, the study population is quite small and more data are needed to confirm these findings. Neverthless, the researchers do conclude that despite the considerable debate over the negative, estrogen-related effects of soy isoflavones, findings suggest only minimal effects.
If you are currently using soy isoflavones as a strategy to combat vasomotors symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, eat with ease. It appears that you are not increasing your breast cancer risk. Nevertheless, as my grandmother used to say “everything in moderation.”
Happy News for Wednesday!
[Cross-posted at EmpowHer.com]
Read MoreL’Chaim
“Life before death.”
My mother told me a story yesterday when we spoke. She said that years ago, a dear friend’s mother died the day before the friend’s daughter was getting married. In Judaism, those who pass are typically buried with 24 hours. This is dictated by the Torah. Kabbalah teachings also suggest that immediate burial brings closure to the soul in terms of its relationship to the physical body, thereby allowing it to pass over. In this particular situation, the rabbi told my mother’s friend to have the wedding first, and then the funeral.
Life before death.
Although my mother told me this story within another context, I relate it to connections and their growing importance in our lives as we age.
Data from a study published in Psychological Review in 2000 suggests that women’s inherent response to stress is to ‘tend and befriend’ rather than ‘fight or flight;’ in other words, there is a biologically-defined strategy or pattern that involves caring for offspring, joining social groups, and gravitating towards friends under stressful circumstances. This is driven, at least in part, by the release of the hormone oxytocin, which coupled with endogenous opioids and other sex hormones, promotes maternal behavior as an alternative to the male-oriented fight and flee response.
Findings from the Nurses Health Study have also shown that friendships help prevent the development of physical impairment and facilitate a more joyful existence. What’s more, having a strong social network can lower blood pressure and heart rate and improve cholesterol levels.
Our community is ever more important as we begin to lose family members to illness, our children begin their own journeys and our hormones start to wreak havoc on our bodies and our minds. Nature has provided us with a built-in prompt to maintain those ever important bonds. Our inherent tendency to nurture completes the picture.
It appears that as women, we possess the strongest alternative strategy to aging in existance. Our friends.
L’chaim.
Read MoreLosing Your Mind?
[Pictured: Lakshmi, Parvati and Saraswati. Hindu godesses]
Researchers would have you believe that being single has something to do it.
Musings of a Midlife Diva posted this story earlier this week and I was curious enough to see if I could delve a bit deeper.
Evidently, researchers from Sweden have found that maintaining regular social interaction as one ages is one of the keys to optimal brain health and potentially, decreasing the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. However, they attribute brain health to the intensity of social and intellectual stimulation that accompanies married life and couple relationships.
In this study, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference last month in Chicago, 1,449 individuals were examined at midlife and then 21 years later. The findings showed that people living with a partner in mid-life were less likely to be cognitively impaired,and had a 50% lower risk of developing dementia in later life. What’s more, persons whose spouses died before they reached middle age and who did not remarry had a more than six-fold higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
Delving a bit deeper, I learned that the reason for living alone is key. In fact, study participants who were widowed or divorced were worse off than those who were single. What’s more, an interaction was found between carrying the gene for Alzheimer’s and being/staying widowed although the researchers could not explain why.
There’s a hidden lesson in these study findings: sisterhood.
As Mid Life Diva emphasizes in her post, the researchers did not address the importance of community, especially sisterhood. Indeed, the degree of intellectual and social stimulation that can be derived outside a marriage was not accounted for in these findings.
As we move through the transition and changes in our midlives, it becomes more important than ever to celebrate our friendships and our connections. Afterall, a marriage of like-minded souls is what fuels our imaginations, stimulates our senses and keeps things fresh and new. While I agree that intimacy fulfills needs that friendships can’t, at the end of the day it’s my sistahs who will ultimately see me through and keep me sane.
Read MoreTo Bo or Not to Bo, part 2
The New York Times has an article today on how older brides are holding botox and other cosmetic-fix-oriented parties for their bridesmaids.
It’s a whole new take on the term “bridezilla,” no?!
Read MoreTwinkling
Photo/Design Credit: Kevin Lynch Designs, UK
Musings of a Mid Life Diva wrote a beautiful post today about the importance of getting your “twinkling” on, i.e. leaving some of daily worries behind to recapture the joys of Summer.
To celebrate life and as a nod to Mid Life Diva, I’m planning on taking a break today to ‘twinkle my toes.’ Read the post and do the same. You’ll be glad that you did.
Read MoreTo Bo or Not to Bo…
Over 2.4 million botox procedures were performed in US women in 2007, according to statistical data from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. 25% of these injections were performed in women between the ages of 51 and 64, while 47% were perfomed in women between the ages of 30 and 50.
What these stats imply is that menopausal women are getting a lot of botox done.
In the youth-obsessed culture in which we live, cutting, reshaping, lifting and plumping has become the norm, not the exception. Yet, I do wonder whether or not too much of a good thing is well, is too much of a good thing. When I see photos of celebrities like Nicole Kidman or Cher, I just cringe. And isn’t it ironic that one of the most potent poisons we know of is used to create the illusion of youth?
I’m not going to stand on a high moral ground judging women’s decisions to inject toxin into their faces to smooth the wrinkles and recapture a few fleeting moments of youth. (Okay, well, that sounds a bit judgmental!) Truly though, the drive to steal a youthful appearance, if only for a few weeks or months, is perfectly understandable; I can’t tell you how many mornings I look in the mirror, and ask myself “what happened?”
But the real challenge is to understand how the external changes that we can see relate to the internal changes that we can’t. I believe that this knowledge can help us to define effective longer-term strategies that ultimately result in a better balance between the two.
Afterall, botox is only skin-deep, isn’t it?
What do you think?
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