More on soy health benefits

By Abigail Mellier, June 15th, 2013 | Health | 0 Comments

A study shows that including a variety of soy protein foods in the diet has a beneficial effect on blood lipids.
It’s generally been assumed that the health benefits of soy protein comes from its isoflavone content. Researchers in the US have been comparing diets with high and low isoflavone soy products. They tested three diets on a group of 23 men and 18 post-menopausal women. All were very low in saturated fat. The control diet had low-fat dairy in place of animal protein, the second and third had soy milk and soy meat substitutes like tofu burgers and soy hot dogs. These last two diets differed in their isoflavone content.

Each soy diet led to decreases in cholesterol, homocysteine (an amino acid that’s a risk factor for heart disease) and overall cardiovascular risk, compared to the control. The isoflavone content made no difference - except that the higher isoflavone diet led to lower levels of LDL (low density lipoprotein or ‘bad’) cholesterol. The study underlines the benefits of including a variety of soy based products in your daily diet.