Vegetable protein ‘delays menopause’
High intake of vegetable protein from foods such as as whole grains, soy and tofu may protect women from early menopause and could prolong reproductive function. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- Early menopause, the cessation of ovarian function before age 45, affects about 10 per cent of women and is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and early cognitive decline, the authors note.
- Few studies have evaluated how protein intake is associated with menopause timing, they say, and to their knowledge this is the first to look specifically at early menopause.
LONG-TERM, high intake of vegetable protein from foods such as as whole grains, soy and tofu may protect women from early menopause and could prolong reproductive function, results of a new study from epidemiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health suggest, the university said in a press release on Monday.
Consuming enriched pasta, dark bread and cold cereal were especially associated with lower risk, while they observed no similar relation to eating animal sources of protein.
“A better understanding of how dietary vegetable protein intake is associated with ovarian ageing may identify ways for women to modify their risk of early onset menopause and associated health conditions,” writes then graduate student Maegan Boutot and her advisor professor Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson.
Early menopause, the cessation of ovarian function before age 45, affects about 10 per cent of women and is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and early cognitive decline, the authors note. Few studies have evaluated how protein intake is associated with menopause timing, they say, and to their knowledge this is the first to look specifically at early menopause.
Boutot, Bertone-Johnson and colleagues in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, with others from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, evaluated the relationship between diet and risk of early menopause among members of the Nurses’ Health Study II, an ongoing prospective study of 116,000 women aged 25 to 42 when they entered it in 1989.
Boutot and Bertone-Johnson say “Though relatively few women in our study consumed very high levels of vegetable protein and our power for analyses of more extreme intake levels was limited, women consuming 9 or more percent of their calories from vegetable protein had a hazard ratio of 0.41” compared to those eating less than 4 per cent. The paper is online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
