Wednesday bubble: flava flavonoid

With the acai berry craze hitting its peak, I thought it was high time to devote a post to flavonoids (compounds found in plants, fruits and beverages that have been shown to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties) — namely, those found in berries.

Yes, berries, This sounded a bit preposterous until I dug a bit deeper and located a current review in Maturitas, suggesting that berry flavonoids might be important for long-term health in menopausal women. However, researchers still can’t define the most important details, for example:

• berry type
• preparation
• regimen

The amount of berry flavonoid that becomes available and used by the body after eating also varies by individual make up and by the different types of flavonoids.

All of these factors are critical to designing a strategy that will yield the maximum health benefit. Nevertheless, evidence from clinical studies suggests the following:

• The addition of berries to the diet can reduce the risk of heart disease by halting the inflammatory process, eliminating free radicals (which can harm the structure of cells), decreasing blood pressure, inhibiting the gathering of platelets (which can lead to clogged arteries) and increasing high density lipoproteins (HDL, good cholesterol)/ reducing low-density lipoproteins (LDL, bad cholesterol). Data points to cranberry juice, wild blueberries, bilberries, blackcurrant or strawberry puree, and chokeberry or raspberry juices.

• Cancer prevention. Note that this has been controversial since increased consumption of dietary fruits and vegetables and not just berries, have been shown to impact certain cancers such as esophogeal cancer. In the small studies that the researchers cite, cranberry juice and freeze dried black raspberry have been shown to control signaling that promotes the proliferation of cancer cells.

• Age-related declines in motor skills, learning and memory impairment, specifically, those linked to a decline in the body’s ability to fight circulating free oxygen radicals that can damage cells. Evidence for these benefits are primarily derived from animal and not human studies, and concentrate on strawberries, blueberries and cranberries.

The researchers caution that it’s impossible to define how much of a single berry or combination of berries might help in disease prevention. Hence, it’s too early to make any definitive claims about berry consumption. However, they do emphasize that to date, research supports the importance of berries as part of a healthy, balanced diet for menopausal women.

Personally, I love berries and health benefits or not, I plan to eat as much of them as I can get my hands on this summer.

More joys of soy

More news on soy. Researchers have discovered yet another component of soy isoflavones that may prove useful in improving symptoms of menopause: soy aglycons of isoflavones (SAI). Soy aglycons are a group of chemicals found in fermented soybeans and comprise a great portion of diets for Chinese and Japanese individuals. Of note, high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, and menopausal symptoms are often seen in a smaller percentage of these women than their European and American counterparts.

Among the various chemical molecules of soy, SAI are absorbed faster and more efficiently than other components.

In this particular study, which was just published in Nutrition & Metabolism, researchers fed rats whose ovaries had been removed either high or low doses of SAI-supplemented diets. These animals were then compared to rats with intact ovaries who were fed a regular diet.

The researchers found that rats fed supplemental SAI had significantly lower cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)  values , higher high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels and faster liver metabolism.  The lining of the uterus was also enhanced by dietary SAI supplementation.

They said that these results suggest that SAI may help protect against or lessen symptoms during menopause that are associated with the natural decline of estrogen.  SAI might also be an effective and safe alternative to HRT, which has been linked to breast and uterine cancers. In general, SAI may protect against menopausal heart disease.

Wednesday Bubble: Reproductive cancers and estrogen

I’ve written previously about HRT and its definitive link to increased breast cancer risk. But how much of a role does natural estrogen play? Moreover, is exposure time important?

I ran across an interesting study in the the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention that suggests that the amount of time a woman spends in the transition to menopause may influence risk for reproductive cancers. The reason: overall exposure to total levels of natural estrogen and unopposed estrogen (i.e. estrogen with little or no progesterone as the result of aging).

In this study, researchers collected daily urine samples from 108 women (ages 25 to 58 years)  for 6 months annually over a total of 5 years and tested them for total estrogen levels.  Using models that evaluated variations in the length of the participants’ menstrual cycles, they also estimated where study participants were in the menopausal transition.

The findings

The results showed that mean levels of total estrogen increased with age in the pre- and peri-transition stages and decreased in the late transition stages. What’s more, the number of days of exposure to unopposed estrogen was higher during the transition to menopause compared with the pre-transition period; it also did not decline until after the menopause.

What these results mean

In general, the study results indicate that women are spending more time exposed to both total levels of estrogen and unopposed estrogen than previously thought. However, because the time spent in perimenopause varies from women to women, exposure to natural estrogen also varies.

The bottom line? Because studies have linked reproductive cancers to lifetime exposure to estrogen, determining the length of time that a women spends in perimenopause may  help researchers determine cancer risk.

Stay tuned – these findings could ultimately  impact how we go through the menopause and what we can do to conquer our risk of developing certain cancers afterwards!

Marijuana and…menopause?

I was intrigued when a colleague of mine sent me research galleys of a new paper he’s co-authored. The subject matter? Confirmation that marijuana has potentially been used for medicinal purposes for centuries.

The new research, published online in the advanced edition of the Journal of Experimental Botany,* focuses on the contents of a 2700 year old grave found in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region in China. The grave reportedly belonged to a shaman of the Gushi clan. The current study expanded on earlier research to confirm the botanical, photochemical and genetic characteristics of the agent, and that it contained psychoactive components, thereby clarifying how it was likely used.

So, why is this important and what does it have to do with menopause anyhow?

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a huge proponent of integrative medicine, i.e. combining the best of western and eastern medicine to come up with an effective therapeutic approach. In fact, I’ve written numerous posts on the value of Chinese medicine to women in menopause who are looking for alternative strategies for their symptoms.

And so, this research lends further proof that herbal medicine has been practiced for centuries and for good reason: it works. Not for everybody (what drug does?) and not all the time and clearly, careful selection of standardized products is essential, as is consulting with a practitioner certified in herbal medicine. I provide links on this site to a few organizations where you can delve deeper into these alternative paths.

Personally, I would be thrilled if researchers discovered that cannabis can be effectively used to treat menopausal symptoms. But in the interim, I am happy to report that it has been shown to be effective in relieving the pain of migraines, reducing involuntary muscle contractions associated with multiple sclerosis and of course, calming nausea in people undergoing chemotherapy.

For critics who say that smoking a drug counteracts all of its potential benefits, I say, take a look at what GW pharmaceuticals is doing with their oral spray, Sativex.

Sativex removes the psychoactive components or cannabinoids and leaves the therapeutic form intact. Thus far, well designed clinical trials have shown it to be effective for pain of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and nerve or neuropathic conditions.

So I salute Dr. Ethan Russo and his Chinese colleagues Hong-En Jiang,  Xiao Li and others, for their dedication and hard work and a wonderful paper.

Thank you for furthering proof that there is and has always been a place for alternative strategies.

*Note – this has not yet been posted  in the online edition of the journal. Full citation is:

Russo EB, Jiang HE, Li X et al. Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis
from Central Asia. J Experim Bot. doi:10.1093/jxb/ern260.

Abstract:
The Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, Xinjiang-Uighur
Autonomous Region, China have recently been excavated
to reveal the 2700-year-old grave of a Caucasoid
shaman whose accoutrements included a large cache
30 of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial
conditions. A multidisciplinary international team demonstrated
through botanical examination, phytochemical
investigation, and genetic deoxyribonucleic acid
analysis by polymerase chain reaction that this mate-
35 rial contained tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive
component of cannabis, its oxidative degradation
product, cannabinol, other metabolites, and its synthetic
enzyme, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase,
as well as a novel genetic variant with two single
40 nucleotide polymorphisms. The cannabis was presumably
employed by this culture as a medicinal or
psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. To our
knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest
documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically
active agent, and contribute to the medical and 45
archaeological record of this pre-Silk Road culture.
Key words: Archaeology, botany, cannabis, cannabinoids,
archaeobotany, ethnopharmacology,