Lignan Research: Bone Health

Reporting in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinol (2002) on the relationships of urinary phyto-oestrogen excretion to BMD in postmenopausal women Kim et al conducted investigations into whether natural phyto-oestrogens are beneficial or harmful in human osteoporosis. This study was performed to investigate the relationships between urinary phyto-oestrogens and bone mineral density (BMD) in Korean postmenopausal women. Results reported showed in subjects with osteoporosis, urinary enterolactone was lower than average and that higher BMD was correlated positively with subjects with higher urinary enterolactone1.

Aqmandi et al (1998) investigated the effects of flaxseed ligans supplementation on bone metabolism in postmenopausal women. In a double-blind crossover study, 38 postmenopausal women who were not on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were randomly assigned to one of the two regimens: flaxseed or sunflower seed (comparative control). During two 6-wk periods, subjects were provided with 38 g of either treatment in the form of breads and muffins. Results showed that while flaxseed treatment (p<0.05) lowered serum tartrate-reststant acid phosphatase (TRAP) activity (a maker of bone resorption) it had no effect on serum bone-specific in comparison with the control group. The flaxseed regimen had no effect on either serum insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I) or insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (1GFBP3) concentrations which are known to be associated with increased bone formation. The flaxseed regimen also tended to decrease both urinary excretions of hydroxyproline, a non-specific marker of bone resorption, and calcium. These observations suggest that flaxseed lignans may exert positive effects on bone metabolism by reducing the rate of bone re-absorption, without changing the rate of bone formation, resulting in a net bone gain2.

Another study reportiing in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinolology (2002) linked Flaxseed lignans to a improved lipid profile in postmenopausal women The study conducted by the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Oklahoma State University assigned postmenopausal women who were not on hormone replacement therapy were assigned to one of two treatment groups in a double-blind randomized study. Women were asked to consume 40g of either ground flaxseed or wheat-based comparative control regimen daily for 3 months. Flaxseed supplementation lowered (P < 0.05) both serum total cholesterol and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol by 6%, whereas the comparative control regimen had no such effect. The flaxseed regimen reduced serum levels of both low-density-and high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol3.