Eat to beat menopause: the right nutrients can help you navigate this passage in time. Get them in our delicious recipes

Natural Health, Oct-Nov, 2001 by Judy Bass

Foods That Make Menopause Miserable

WHILE SOME FOODS CAN ERASE or lessen menopausal symptoms, others can exacerbate them. If you suffer from any of the following complaints, here's what to watch out for.

HOT FLASHES: Stimulants, like caffeine and alcohol, and heat-producing foods, like spicy foods and hot drinks, can bring on hot flashes in some people, says Elaine Magee, M.P.H., R.D., a dietitian in Walnut Creek, Calif. Eliminate them from your diet to see if it helps.

NAUSEA: To prevent that queasy feeling, skip acidic foods like tomatoes and orange juice if your stomach is empty.

MOOD SWINGS: Avoid high-sugar foods, especially on an empty stomach. They can make your blood sugar quickly spike up and then sharply drop, causing your mood to follow suit.

CALCIUM LOSS: Caffeine, a diuretic, doubles your rate of calcium loss through urine. Three cups of coffee can cause you to lose 45 mg of calcium, says Ann Louise Gittleman, a certified nutrition specialist in Bozeman, Mont. Many soft drinks contain not only caffeine but phosphoric acid, which interferes with calcium absorption in your intestines. Diets high in protein and sodium also encourage calcium loss.

HEADACHES: Avoid red wine, beer, coffee, and chocolate, because alcohol and caffeine are common headache triggers.

A Close Look at Soy and Menopause

FOR YEARS WOMEN HAVE CONSUMED SOY in a variety of forms, including supplements, hoping to ease their hot flashes. But lately some health experts have questioned the wisdom of eating so much soy.

Looking for answers, the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), a nonprofit organization in Cleveland, Ohio, convened a panel of eight experts to examine the research on soy and women's health. They reviewed more than 100 studies related to isoflavones (phytoestrogens in soy), but unfortunately could come to few conclusions. Their findings were published in Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society in 2000.

Some studies, they noted, indicate that isoflavones can ease hot flashes, but others found only a slight reduction. The panel also said that safe levels of isoflavone intake haven't been established yet, and questions remain about how consuming a lot of isoflavones affects healthy women.

One panel member, Mark Messina, Ph.D., a nutritionist in Port Townsend, Wash., and author of The Simple Soybean and Your Health (Avery, 1994), believes a target daily intake should be about 15 g of soy protein and 50 mg of isoflavones. He also feels that women shouldn't have more than about 25 to 30 g of soy protein per day and about 100 mg of isoflavones. (There are 100 mg of isoflavones in 10 1/2 ounces of tofu, 3/4 cup shelled edamame, or 5 cups of soymilk.) "But there's little evidence to think that consuming amounts somewhat greater than this is harmful," he adds. Soyfoods should be your preferred way to get isoflavones. Supplements are fine as a backup, Messina says.

The bottom line? Make soy just one element of a varied, balanced diet.

Judy Bass, a frequent contributor to Natural Health, writes from Stoughton, Mass. Nice Polido is a freelance vegetarian chef and cooking instructor in Southampton, N.Y. She is Natural Health's recipe tester.