During and after the menopause women experience many physical and emotional changes. Unfortunately, along with the physical changes comes an increased risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and breast cancer. This is partly due to changes in oestrogen production that occur during the menopause, and also to the types of food eaten in the years leading up to and including the menopause. In other words, what we eat affects our risk of getting certain diseases.
Because the risk of getting breast cancer is related to a woman’s lifetime exposure to the oestrogen circulating in her body, many studies have looked at ways of lowering the oestrogen that is thought to help cancer cells grow. For example, breast cancer cells have oestrogen receptors on their surface where oestrogen molecules can “land” and in some way, help the growth of these cells.