Posted by johnj on November 20, 2002, at 9:31:30
In reply to Re: Japanese women, soy and menopause » johnj, posted by IsoM on November 20, 2002, at 3:13:05
Hi Iso,
I have actually had the opposite experience with the Japanese women I know and my wife who is Japanese. My wife is perimenopausal. She takes prempro because she was to the point where she could not study and would cry for no reason. she has no history of any type of mood disorders. Her sister had issues for many years due to menopause, but her mother had her periods until 58! It hurt like hell to watch her suffer. We found a great female doctor at the university where she just graduated last May (had to put that in since I am proud of her:).) She prescribed the pill and it made her so naseauated which we discovered later that her younger sister had the same reaction (she lives in the States too). Well, the prempro has done wonders. She was able to finish school with no problem. I know HRT is a hot subject right now, but believe me we talked to a specialist and to be frank, my wife would not be able to carry on a normal life without the HRT.Back to the original topic, her two friends back in Japan are having the same trouble right now too, but the education on what is happeing seems so watered down. One is going to have a hysterectomy and the other just suffers because the docs don't do anything. I was most suprised at how their skin changed in such a short amount of time(2 years). My wife comes from an island that has the oldest living people in Japan. They all come from an island in or around Okinawa.
When I worked for a large Japanese company in Ohio and personally took care of over 100 families from Japan I saw the same menopausal problems. We had a center that helped the women by providing interpreters and all the same symptoms I read about over the net were occurring there too.
Her best friend back in Ohio is in her early fifties and had hot flashes, but she didn't know what to call them when she had them. She is from mainland Japan.
My wife has no hot flash problems. I have learned some about menopause, but all of the different terms the docs throw around confuse the heck out of me!
My wife eats a die hard Japanese diet. We eat tofu everyday with our miso soup. She also drinks soy milk and likes tofu with a little ginger and soy sauce. If the isoflavanoids do help maybe my wife is in the minority. But again, she has never had any hot flashes so maybe she is getting some type of protection that she wouldn't have if she didn't eat tofu at all. We spent last night running around and trying to find a face cream because her skin has become drier, but she has had these problems before and is probably just coincidence.
I too think it is a long term diet change, but it just didn't seem to matter much to my wife.
Take care.
johnj
poster:johnj
thread:128270
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021116/msgs/128440.html