Mediterranean Diet and Soy Isoflavones for Integrated Management of the Menopausal Metabolic Syndrome

Specifically, a recent work by Dinu and colleagues of “The Working Group “Young Members” of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition (SINU)” suggested that the “Mediterranean diet had the strongest and most consistent evidence of a beneficial effect on both anthropometric parameters and cardiometabolic risk factors” [21]. [...]a very recent observational research published in Circulation by Le Ma and coworkers [22] indicated that “higher intake of isoflavones and tofu was associated with a moderately lower risk of developing Coronary Heart Disease, and in women the favorable association of tofu were more pronounced in young women or postmenopausal women without hormone use”; consequently, it appears that an adequate intake of isoflavones and/or soy products such as tofu can be integrated into healthy plant-based diets, adding nutritional support in the prevention of CVD [23]. Undoubtedly, the question is interesting, opening new intriguing fields studying the effects of the combination “Mediterranean diet” and soy isoflavones intake, with the ambitious target to better define in post-menopausal women [25] the relationship between diet, bioactive foods, and nutraceuticals then counteracting, through lifestyle modifications, the constellation of risk factors that characterize MetS.