Could a fruit bar a day be the answer to the fragile bone disease osteoporosis? Trials of a new food product enriched with phytoestrogens could provide women with a tasty alternative to HRT.
Under the European research project Phytos, scientists have developed phytoestrogen-enriched biscuits and fruit bars with different flavours.
In preliminary trials, 42 women tested the products. Scientists, led by Prof Francesco Branca at the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione (INRAN) in Italy, decided to move the product onto a main trial after results suggested that isoflavones, via the food, were ingested in the gut.
If the findings from the trial prove positive, they could represent a very real market opportunity for the food industry. Scientists suggest fragile bone disease is a growing phenomenon and that by the age of 80, 40 per cent of women in Europe can be expected to have suffered an osteoporotic spine fracture.
Ongoing research in the western world is looking at the protective effect phytoestrogens could play in the health of women. Because the diet in Asian countries is rich in soy, and osteoporosis is less prevalent than in Western countries, scientists have been led to believe the theory that phytoestrogens could protect against the onslaught of osteoporosis. But not only this, they could provide an alternative to the current strategy, Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), rejected by some women because of their fear of side effects.
Before menopause, high blood levels of oestrogen hormones protect women's bones. But post-menopause, levels fall, a decline which is today associated with accelerated bone loss.