Women tend to live longer than men but are more likely to suffer from chronic illness.
Western women have a variety of health concerns, many of which are related to varying extents to the diet. Coronary heart disease , bone health , and breast cancer as well as symptoms of menopause all have a diet relationship. CHD has no single cause. Soy protein may offer women other special advantages in addition to its cholesterol lowering effect. The fact that soy isoflavones are tissue specific in their estrogen-like activities may allow these compounds to provide the beneficial effects of estrogen, such as reducing blood cholesterol, while avoiding the undesirable estrogenic effect of cell proliferation in reproductive organs that are commonly the target of cancer.