Vegan Diet Cuts Moderate-to-Severe Menopause Hot Flashes by 84% in Trial

A low-fat vegan diet with half a cup of cooked soybeans a day cut moderate-to-severe menopausal hot flashes by 84% in just 12 weeks, a randomised trial has found. That is from nearly five a day to fewer than one, and 59% of the women on the diet became free of them.

The WAVS trial, run by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC, randomly assigned 38 postmenopausal women with at least two hot flashes a day to the diet or to no changes. Moderate-to-severe hot flashes fell 42% in the control group, so the diet doubled the improvement. The results are published in the journal Menopause.

Total hot flashes fell 79%, and the diet group also reported better quality of life across vasomotor, psychosocial, physical and sexual symptoms. It is a small, 12-week trial.

The combination of a low-fat, vegan diet and whole soybeans was associated with reduced frequency and severity of hot flashes and improved quality of life in vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, and sexual domains in postmenopausal women.

That is how the authors conclude in the full paper.

Low-fat vegan diets have already beaten control diets in trials for weight and fat loss and insulin sensitivity.

Relief from hot flashes, without a prescription, from a bowl of beans.