Flax Facts

Apparently giving us fifty-something ladies with hot flashes our daily crushed flax seed may decrease the heat by half.

Investigators took a group of our colleagues* with at least 14 flashes per week and fed them crushed flax seed. The phytoestrogenic facets of flax--i.e. its ability to occupy cellular estrogen receptors and tweak them in an estrogenic sort of way--made this strategy an appealing one for temperature control. Indeed, those ladies who did not find themselves distended and gassy from the addition of flax were pleased to find an improvement in their symptoms.

One observation about hot flashes from years of personal and professional experience: When I ask women if they are flashing, and they hedge and say well perhaps maybe occasionally they might feel something like that, they are NOT having hot flashes. If it's a hot flash, you KNOW it.
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*Pruthi S, et al "Pilot Evaluation of Flaxseed for the Management of Hot Flashes" J Soc for Integrative Oncology 2007; 5: doi 10.2310/7200.2007.007.