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Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007

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Women who enter menopause often develop high blood pressure, insulin resistance (a risk factor for type 2 diabetes), and memory loss. New research conducted in menopausal rats suggests that polyphenols - compounds found in grapes, soy, and kudzu -- may blunt some of these side effects associated with menopause.

"It is unlikely that these polyphenols could eventually provide effective stand-alone therapy for post-menopausal women," said Dr. J. Michael Wyss, but at some point they may be used to complement traditional pharmaceutical compounds, making them effective at a lower dosage.

"Once it came out that estrogen therapy was not beneficial and in some cases could be disadvantageous, we started looking at plant estrogens as alternatives" for treating the symptoms of menopause, Wyss, a physiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, noted in a telephone interview with Reuters Health.

At a meeting sponsored by the American Physiological Society held in Austin this month, Wyss reported that, in estrogen-depleted rats, kudzu root extract reduced blood pressure, elevated by a high-salt diet, by more than 50 percent. Kudzu also lowered blood sugar, insulin levels and the fat hormone leptin.

"Kudzu has estrogen-like elements," Wyss said, "and some of the soy-based botanicals sold in...health food stores actually contain a lot of kudzu, so one has to be aware that the labeling does not necessarily match what's inside the box."

Wyss and colleagues also observed that estrogen-depleted rats fed polyphenols from grape seed seemed to be protected against high blood pressure as well as a decline in short-term and long-term.

Other studies from the Wyss lab indicate that polyphenols in soy foods also protect against high blood pressure in menopausal rats.

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For menopausal symptoms, grapes, soy and kudzu "may be useful" treatments or add-on treatments to other therapies, Wyss concluded. He said his team is also looking at the effects of adding these polyphenols to conventional treatments for diabetes and lipid control.

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