Hot Flashes and Soy: It Doesn’t Help

Remember the good news about soy taking the edge of menopause? Forget it. A new study of women who reached menopause in the last five years reveals that a placebo did a better job of reducing hot flashes than soy did. The Washington Post reports that study, which involved 248 women, gave one group of women a soy isoflavone tablet (200 milligrams) and another group took a placebo. After two years, the researchers found that women in both groups had lost bone density at the same rate, and there were no differences in such menopausal symptoms as disrupted sleep and vaginal dryness. Hot flashes, however, were a different and perplexing story: 48 percent of the soy group continued to experience hot flashes, while only 32 percent of the placebo group did.  Constipation was also more common among those taking soy.

Read more in the Washington Post.