Isoflavone

Main effects

Isoflavones are non-nutritive botanical compounds that are rich in soy products and a few other plant species; both genistein and  glycetein are isoflavones. Their chemical structure looks similar to estrone (also known as estrogen), a steroid hormone.

Plant sources: produced mainly from soybeans, lentils, pod legumes s well as highly processed food made from soybeans such as vegetarian meat, soybean flour, tofu and soy milk. Among them, tofu retains more of isoflavone content than milk.

Main functions of isoflavones：

1. Reduce LDL cholesterol, help to prevent or cure menopausal syndromes and provide the linoleic acid and linoloinic acid needed by human body.
2. Balance blood cholesterol and reduce blood cholesterol levels.
3. Make arteries more flexible and prevent damage to heart
4. Enhance bone density, reduce calcium loss and reduce the chance of suffering from osteoporosis.
5. Reduce the chance of suffering from cancer, especially breast cancer and prostate cancer.
6. Relieve menopause discomfort, such as hot flash, fever, emotional instability, headache, insomnia, fatigue, night sweats, vaginal dryness and so on.
7. Treat Enteritis syndrome, hot flash, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and cancer, also help fight coronary heart disease.
8. Flavonoids can reduce the formation of free radicals and help regeneration of other antioxidants. Soy isoflavones are a type of natural plant estrogen which is good to human body. The plant bioactive element extracted from natural soybeans is very similar to the estrogen molecular structure and can be combined with female estrogen receptors and play two-ways regulation on estrogen safely and with no side effects, so it is also known as "phytoestrogen." It can relieve osteoporosis and other symptoms caused by menopause, delay skin aging, improve skin quality, make female skin smooth, delicate and elastic. Due to its role in improvement of women life quality, it is also called "feminine charm factor".

Isomers of flavonoids

Isoflavones are isomers of flavones with some physiological activity.The phenyl group side chain of its γ-pyrazone ring is not connected to C2 position but to C3 position. Natural isoflavones are mainly found in angiosperms and some members of the Fabaceae Rosaceae and Iridaceae family. The kudzu root, one of the legume contains five isoflavone derivatives, namely, glycinin, daidzein, puerarin, puerarin- 7-xyloside and daidzein-4 ', 7-diglucoside. The structure of isoflavones compound are similar to that of estrogen, so generally it is regarded as the precursor substances of hormone, and it differs from flavonoids compound in its negative reaction against hydrochloric acid and magnesium powder.

Uses

Antioxygenation, estrogen-like, cancer prevention and anti-cancer, disease prevention such as senile dementia, cardiovascular diseases and breast cancer, improvement of life quality.

Uses

Isoflavones possess antioxidant properties and antipromotional effects.

Definition

ChEBI: A simplest member of the class of isoflavones that is 4H-chromen-4-one in which the hydrogen at position 3 is replaced by a phenyl group.