Re: Flaxseed May Relieve Hot Flashes

On Sep 4, 8:30 am, bigvince <Vince.Mirag...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 4, 7:23 am, Roman Bystrianyk <rbystria...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Kathleen Doheny, "Flaxseed May Relieve Hot Flashes", Washington Post,
August 31, 2007,
Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/31/AR200...

Flaxseed may be one way to reduce the bothersome hot flashes of
menopause, Mayo Clinic researchers report.

A small pilot study found that postmenopausal women not on estrogen
who used dietary flaxseed daily reported a 50 percent reduction in hot
flashes over the course of six weeks.

"Flaxseed worked very well," said Dr. Sandhya Pruthi, director of the
Mayo Breast Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "The women
who used it said it really helped them."

But another expert, Dr. Wulf H. Utian, executive director of the North
American Menopause Society, cautioned that the study was too
preliminary to prove that flaxseed is effective.

While hormone replacement therapy, particularly estrogen, is effective
against hot flashes, its long-term use has fallen out of favor since
the large study known as the Women's Health Initiative found an
increased risk of heart disease, breast cancer and other problems with
long-term HRT use. So, Pruthi and her team were looking at options for
women who suffered from hot flashes but didn't want to take estrogen.

They enrolled 29 postmenopausal women, median age 55, in the study. To
join, the women had to have at least 14 hot flashes a week for at
least one month.

"Flaxseed has some natural phytoestrogens," Pruthi said, explaining
how it, like the hormone estrogen, could possibly have an effect on
hot flashes.

Over the course of the study, the women sprinkled 40 grams of crushed
flaxseed daily into yogurt or cereal or mixed it with orange juice or
water.

In the end, 21 women completed the study; others had dropped out
because of side effects. Of those who finished, the researchers said,
the frequency of hot flashes declined 50 percent, and the hot flash
score -- a combined measure of a flash's severity and frequency -- was
found to have decreased about 57 percent.

"By the second or third week, most women noticed improvement," Pruthi
said, adding that she is now planning a larger study to compare
flaxseed to a placebo.

Until those results are in, Utian is not convinced the flaxseed is a
proven treatment for hot flashes.

"This reduction [in the pilot study] could fall into the placebo
effect," he said.

The study was also relatively brief, he added. And many women
experiencing menopause suffer many more hot flashes than 14 a week.
(Fifteen of the Mayo study women reported 10 or more a week, but 13
reported 2 to 9 a week.)

Utian added, however, that he was not aware of any harm in eating
flaxseed.

And Pruthi said that because the fiber content gave some women in the
study abdominal discomfort, those that find it hard on the stomach
should consider starting at a lower dose and working up.

Her research was just published in the summer 2007 issue of theJournal
of the Society for Integrative Oncology.

More information

To learn more about hot flashes, visit Breast cancer.org.

SOURCES: Sandhya Pruthi, M.D., director, Mayo Breast Clinic, Mayo
Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Wulf H. Utian, M.D., Ph.D., executive
director, North American Menopause Society, and consultant, Cleveland
Clinic, Ohio; Summer 2007 issue,Journal of the Society for Integrative
Oncology

And unlike the treatment recommended by 'traditional doctors' it does
not cause cancer.

Thanks Vince

And reduces your heart disease risk ...

"Good fats lower multiple heart disease risk factors", Medical News
Today, November 9, 2004,
Link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=16068

A Penn State study has shown that a diet rich in alpha-linolenic acid
from walnuts, walnut oil and flaxseed oil not only lowered bad
cholesterol but also decreased markers for blood vessel inflammation
in men and women representative of typical Americans at cardiovascular
risk.

While previous studies have shown that walnut supplementation
favorably affects cholesterol and other lipids that are signs of
cardiovascular risk, this new study is the first to demonstrate that a
diet high in walnuts decreases C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of
inflammation strongly associated with heart disease.

Dr. Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition who led
the study. says, "In a heart healthy diet, you need different
unsaturated fatty acids that come from a variety of vegetable sources.
Walnuts are a good source of two essential unsaturated fatty acids,
alpha-linolenic acid and linoleic acid. They are a source of dietary
fiber and a small amount of plant protein and other important vitamins
and minerals. This research shows that walnuts, with their unique
nutrient profile, can play a role in reducing cardiovascular risk
factors as part of eating plans that also control saturated fat, trans
fat, dietary cholesterol and calories."

The study is detailed in a paper, Dietary Alpha-Linolenic Acid Reduces
Inflammatory and Lipid Cardiovascular Risk Factor in
Hypercholesterolemic Men and Women, in the current issue of the
Journal of Nutrition. The authors are Guixiang Zhao, former doctoral
student in nutritional sciences at Penn State; Dr. Terry D. Etherton,
distinguished professor and head of the Department of Dairy and Animal
Sciences; Dr. Keith R. Martin, assistant professor of nutritional
sciences; Dr. Sheila G. West, assistant professor of biobehavioral
health; Dr. Peter J. Gillies, director, Health Science Strategy,
DuPont Haskell Laboratory for Health and Environmental Sciences,
DuPont; and Kris-Etherton.

The study included 20 men and 3 women, average age about 50, who were
overweight, had moderately elevated cholesterol and LDL cholesterol
and were representative of individuals at risk for cardiovascular
disease. On average their total cholesterol was 225, LDL cholesterol
154, HDL cholesterol 45 and triglycerides 137 mg/dl.

The participants ate three experimental diets that provided about 35
percent of total calories as fat. One diet approximated the average
American diet (AAD). Another, the linoleic acid (LA) diet, included an
ounce of walnuts and a tablespoon of walnut oil that provided about
12.6 percent of calories from linoleic acid and 3.6 percent of
calories from alpha-linolenic acid. The third, the alpha-linolenic
acid (ALA) diet, included the walnuts and walnut oil as well as a
teaspoon of flaxseed oil to boost the content of alpha-linolenic acid.
The fat content was 10.5 percent of calories from linoleic acid and
6.5 percent from alpha-linolenic acid.

The participants consumed each diet for six weeks. Then they took a
two-week break before beginning the next diet. At the end of each 6-
week diet period, they provided blood samples so that their
cardiovascular risk factors could be monitored.

Compared to the average American diet, both the LA and the ALA diets
lowered total cholesterol about 11 percent, LDLs about 11 or 12
percent and triglycerides about 18 percent. After six weeks on the
diet, CRP declined after both the LA and ALA diets but more so on the
ALA diet. Some participants had a dramatic reduction in CRP.

Kris-Etherton notes, "It will be important to determine whether there
is a genetic basis for this different CRP response. "

.

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