Table 1.

Treatment group characteristics.^*

	con	E2	EQ
Age (yrs)
baseline	20.8 ± 0.8	21.2 ± 0.8	23.3 ± 0.8
Body weight (kg)
baseline	3.36 ± 0.14	3.32 ± 0.15	3.51 ± 0.14
8 months	3.42 ± 0.15	3.14 ± 0.15	3.61 ± 0.14
change	0.06 ± 0.06	−0.18 ± 0.06†	0.10 ± 0.06
Serum estradiol (pg/ml)
baseline	<5	6.1 ± 0.5	5.1 ± 0.4
3 weeks	<5	77.9 ± 14.1†	5.5 ± 13.2
Serum equol (ng/ml)
3 weeks	<2	<2	129.5 ± 8.9‡
27 weeks	ND	ND	133.5 ± 22.7

con = control casein/lactalbumin-based diet; E2 = control diet with the human equivalent of 1 mg oral micronized 17β-estradiol per day; EQ = control diet with the human equivalent of 105 mg racemic equol per day; ND, not determined.

^*Values represent means ± SE. E2 and EQ were measured in a randomly selected subset of animals. Respective group numbers for con, E2, and EQ groups were 8, 12, and 18 (serum E2 baseline); 7, 7, and 8 (serum E2 3 weeks); 7, 7, and 22 (serum EQ 3 weeks); and 0, 0, and 22 (serum EQ 27 weeks). For conversion to SI units, multiply by 3.70 for E2 (pmol/L) and 4.13 for equol (nmol/L).

^†Significantly different from control group at P < 0.01.

^‡Significantly different from control group at P < 0.0001.