WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Study: Soy doesn't ease menopause symptoms

Miami, Florida - August 9, 2011

"It sorta hits you like a bang to the head."

Marcia Vidal is talking about menopause.

"Sleepless nights, you wake up two or three times in the middle of the night with hot flashes," Vidal said.

When a woman's body starts to make drastic changes and becomes infertile.

"You're moody, you're sentimental, you feel overly stressed," Vidal said.

Sounds like fun, right? Well, that's why women have been trying numerous ways to subdue the symptoms of menopause. One way is with soy protein.

Dr. Silvina Levis and her staff from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine are putting the protein to the test with a two-year study testing if soy really does help menopausal women with bone loss.

"Women in Asia consume a lot of soy foods and they seem to have hot flashes and less fractures. The belief is that estrogen found in soy beans provides these things," Levis said.

Vidal was part of the study. She had to take a certain amount of the soy protein tablets every day for two years. Each participant also got a journal.

"There you would write when you got a hot flash, what were you doing," Vidal said.

The soybean is high in estrogen-like properties. Women post menopause lose a large amount of estrogen. So it's believed soy can lessen bone loss. But Levis debunked that belief.

"Soy supplements do not help prevent bone loss or menopausal symptoms in women in the first five years of menopause," Levis said.

"During the study I wanted to feel affects, but no nothing," Vidal said.

Despite soy not helping her with her symptoms, Vidal has other advice for women going through the rough ride of menopause: "You gotta keep your mind occupied. You don't dwell on it... it goes on and next!"

The two-year, $3 million study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

CBS News