Dr. Marian Verbruggen explains the important health benefits of soybeans.
Women Benefit from Soy
Interview with Dr. Marian Verbruggen
Interviewed by Raena Morgan
March 28, 2008
Raena Morgan: Hello, I’m visiting with Dr. Marian Verbruggen. She is with Frutarum Health. We’re talking about the soybean, aren’t we?
Dr. Marian Verbruggen: Yes, we are.
RM: It’s very important, isn’t it?
MV: The soybean is very important; it’s a very nutritional bean or food product, actually to look at for many health benefits indeed.
RM: Frutarum puts out a SoyLife, is that what it’s called?
MV: Yes.
RM: Could you tell us about that?
MV: It was produced SoyLife and we exclusively produced that from the soy germ so that that little, tiny part from the soybean finally they grew a plant from [it].
RM: That’s the most nutritional part?
MV: That’s the most nutritional part; that’s where the plant cell concentrates all its healthy nutrients in, more or less. We sell it for the isoflavone portion that’s in the soy germ. If you look at the soybean there’s approximately .3% of isoflavones present and in the soy germ it’s typically 10 times as high. So, that’s why we use it as a natural rich source of isoflavones.
RM: So, it’s very potent.
MV: It’s very potent, as it is already, as a soy germ, yes.
RM: What are some of the benefits of soy?
MV: Soy is known to affect, especially, women’s health, especially in aging women. Once women get into menopause they suffer a lot of discomforts like menopausal discomforts as a result also [of] a greater loss of bone. And, the isoflavones in soy and in SoyLife can prevent that bone loss appearing and it can prevent the occurrence of menopausal symptoms like hot flashes.
RM: Because it has estrogen properties?
MV: Yes, yes. It’s an estrogen mimic, more or less, yes. The structure looks similar as an estrogen so it fits in with the estrogen receptors, thereby doing the same thing as an estrogen but at a lower strength.
RM: Than HRT?
MV: Yes, yes, exactly.
RM: So, it’s a lot safer?
MV: A lot safer, yes. It has been used for years now and we didn’t have any reports of adverse effects or whatever.
RM: How does it stack up against typical products for bone loss like your Boniva—those sort of products?
MV: I’m not aware, really, of Boniva.
RM: Fosomax.
MV: That’s mostly, probably also hormone products?
RM: Well, it’s to prevent bone loss.
MV: Yes, yes. We are not marketing SoyLife as really a replacement for medication.
RM: Okay.
MV: I mean it supports the prevention of bone loss but it’s not a medicine. It can never be as strong as a real estrogen. It’s not a real estrogen but it [helps] to prevent bone loss.
RM: It’s a natural product.
MV: It’s a natural product without the adverse effects.
RM: No side effects.
MV: No side effects at least not with unintelligible.
RM: Very good. Tell us a little bit about the studies that you’ve done.
MV: As with respect to bone loss we’ve done 3 studies now; 2 of them were done in China and they have been done with SoyLife at a dose of approximately 80 milligrams of isoflavones as a daily dose. And, all of them have shown that, although you expect after menopause that’s the bone loss increases…due to the women not producing their own hormones anymore….We actually found that we didn’t find any bone loss actually anymore; it increased even a bit.
RM: Oh, it did?
MV: So, it was really preventing bone loss from occurring.
RM: Well, thank you Dr. Verbruggen.
MV: You’re welcome.
No comments yet.