Background and Objective: Following estrogen depletion in postmenopausal women, its cardioprotective effect decreases. Epidemiologic data have shown that phytoestrogens can be used in estrogen – related diseases to reduce symptoms and to treat these diseases. Therefore, the present study was designed to evaluate the effect of soy extract on the rate of apoptosis in heart tissue in ovariectomized rats.

Materials and Methods: Forty female Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups: (n=10): 1) sham operated control, 2) control gavage (intact animals with soybean extract), 3) untreated ovariectomized and 4) treated ovariectomized with soybean. Soybean extracts were given orally (60mg/kg/day) to animals in groups 2 and 4 for 28 days. At the end of the treatment, TUNEL kit was used to detect apoptotic cardiomyocytes. ANOVA was used to compare and analyze the data.

Results: The results showed that the number of apoptotic cardiomyocytes significantly increased in ovariectomized group compared to the other groups (p>0.05). Also, the number of apoptotic cardiomyocytes in the treated group significantly decreased more than ovariectomized group (p>0.05).

Conclusion: This study showed that oral administration of soybean extracts to ovariectomized rats reduced the rate of apoptosis in heart tissue.