Objective
To examine the association between urinary phytoestrogens and self-reported urinary
incontinence in postmenopausal women in the United States using a large, cross-sectional,
population-based cohort survey.
Methods
Data were analyzed for 1789 postmenopausal women aged 50 years or older who participated
in one of the 2001-2010 cycles of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
and underwent measurement of 4 isoflavone (soy derived) and 2 lignan (flax derived)
phytoestrogens in their urine. Incontinence was defined as self-reported stress, urge,
other, or mixed incontinence. Urine phytoestrogen concentrations were examined in
weighted, multivariate logistic regression models for association with each of the
lower urinary tract symptoms. All models were adjusted for age, body mass index, diabetes,
race, smoking, and parity.
Results
Increasing urine concentrations of the lignan phytoestrogen enterodiol was associated
with decreased likelihood of urge (odds ratio [OR], 0.92; 95% confidence interval
[CI], 0.85-0.99), mixed (OR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.82-0.98), and other (OR, 0.90; 95% CI,
0.81-0.99) incontinence, whereas increasing urine concentrations of the lignan phytoestrogen
enterolactone was associated with decreased likelihood of urge (OR, 0.92; 95% CI,
0.86-0.99) and mixed (OR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.84-0.99) incontinence. No association was
observed between any isoflavone phytoestrogens and types of incontinence.
Conclusion
This study demonstrates that lignan phytoestrogens may have a protective effect against
incontinence in postmenopausal women. Prospective clinical and laboratory studies
are warranted to investigate the mechanism of this relationship.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 29, 2015
Accepted:
July 20,
2015
Received:
March 23,
2015
Footnotes
Evgeniy I. Kreydin and Michelle M. Kim contributed equally to the work.
Financial Disclosure: The authors declare that they have no relevant financial interests.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
