Studies suggest natural treatment for menopause:Studies suggest natural treatment for menopausePeter Rejcek9/4/2007 4:05:01 PMA couple of recent but unrelated studies have found that flaxseed and pine bark extract may help calm hot flashes and other symptoms associated with pre- and postmenopausal conditions.A small pilot study published in the summer issue of the Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology reported that the frequency of hot flashes fell by nearly 60 percent for postmenopausal women with hot flashes who took flaxseed but refrained from taking estrogen.”Hot flashes are a bothersome issue for women experiencing menopause,” said Dr. Sandhya Pruthi, the principal investigator for the Mayo Clinic team, in a release…. A 2006 study published in the journal Menopause reported that 99 postmenopausal women received no relief after eating muffins with 25 grams of crushed flax seeds for 16 weeks.Pruthi’s research team hopes to begin a new, larger clinical trial in 2008 to evaluate flaxseed against a placebo to better refine the results, and to determine whether flaxseed is a viable treatment option for hot flashes in women.In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, researchers found a possible link between pycnogenol, a pine bark extract from the French maritime pine tree, and the reduction of common symptoms associated with premenopause (also called perimenopause).The randomized, double-blind study involved 155 perimenopausal women.