A diet rich in soy may help feminine hearts, but timing matters, finds a new study published online Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society.

Lifelong soy consumption, similar to the diet of women in Asia, produces the least atherosclerosis. Switching to a Western diet after menopause, similar to Asian migrants to North America, leads to just as much atherosclerosis as a lifelong Western diet, and switching to soy from a Western diet after menopause helps only if there isn't much atherosclerosis already.

Taking B vitamins doesn't slow mental decline as we age, nor is it likely to prevent Alzheimer's disease, conclude Oxford University researchers who have assembled all the best clinical trial data involving 22,000 people to offer a final answer on this debate.

Elevated plasma homocysteine is a risk factor for Alzheimer disease, but the relevance of homocysteine lowering to slow the rate of cognitive ageing is uncertain.

The researchers aim was to assess the effects of treatment with B vitamins compared with placebo, when administered for several years, on composite domains of cognitive function, global cognitive function, and cognitive ageing.