Plant Estrogens May Fight Menopausal Bone Loss
(NY, Reuters Health, 3/9/04)

In a one-year study, Dr. Sheila Bingham of the Medical Research Council Dunn Human Nutrition Unit, Cambridge, UK, and team, tracked 177 older women, most of whom were post-menopausal. The subjects had recently undergone a mammogram and had no history of breast cancer. The researchers randomly assigned the women to take a daily supplement of an isoflavone derived from red clover. The scientists found that the women taking the isoflavones, which are plant compounds that are similar to estrogen, had lost less bone density in the lower spine than those given a placebo, indicating that isoflavone supplementation may lessen menopausal bone loss