Does soy help cool hot flashes after all?
May 3, 2012 Despite a good amount of evidence to the contrary, a new research review suggests that soy supplements can indeed help women find relief from menopausal hot flashes.
So far, studies have come to conflicting findings on whether soy extracts are effective against the sudden bouts of feverish feeling experienced by many women transitioning to menopause.
Soy contains isoflavones, compounds that are thought to have weak estrogen-like effects in some body tissue. That hints that soy or soy extracts could help cool hot flashes. But whether that's actually the case has been unclear.
Last year, for example, a clinical trial of 248 women found no evidence that a soy isoflavone supplement worked better than placebo pills in easing menopausal symptoms. (See Reuters Health story of August 8, 2011.)
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