Lambert MNT, et al. – Effect of isoflavone therapies on bone mineral density (BMD) loss in peri– and postmenopausal women was examined. Findings demonstrated that isoflavone treatments exerted a moderately beneficial impact against estrogen–deficient bone loss in women. Researchers reported that the influence seemed to rely on whether isoflavone treatments were in aglycone form; they concluded that beneficial effects against bone loss may be enhanced for isoflavone aglycones.

Methods

• Researchers systematically searched EMBASE and PubMed for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing isoflavone therapies for treating BMD loss at the lumbar spine and femoral neck in estrogen-deficient women.
• They also performed separate meta-analyses with the use of random-effects models for the lumbar spine and femoral neck for all studies providing isoflavones as aglycones.

Results

• This meta-analysis included 26 RCTs (n = 2652).
• Findings demonstrated that at the lumbar spine, isoflavone treatment was associated with a significantly (P < 0.00001) higher weighted mean difference (WMD) of BMD change of 0.01 (95% CI: 0.01, 0.02) than the control.
• They also noted that, for the femoral neck (18 RCTs, n = 1604), isoflavone treatment showed a significantly (P < 0.01) higher WMD of BMD change of 0.01 (95% CI: 0.00, 0.02) compared with the control.
• Data revealed that, when isolating studies that provide isoflavone aglycones in their treatment arm, the average effect was further significantly increased at the spine (5 RCTs, n = 682) to 0.04 (P < 0.00001; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.05) and femoral neck (4 RCTs, n = 524) to 0.03 (P < 0.05; 95% CI: 0.00, 0.06) compared with the control.
• Results highlighted that this protective effect against bone loss disappeared when only studies with formulations comprising predominantly isoflavone glycosides were included.