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Other Important Soy
Studies
According
to Dr. Mark Messina, former program director for the diet and cancer branch of the
National Cancer Institute and author of "The Simple Soybean and Your Health",
the link between eating soy and decreased risk of heart disease was just made in the
1960's-by accident!
Apparently. a team of researchers investigating the effects
of starches and sugars on cholesterol noticed that specially formulated foods made of
isolated soy protein dramatically lowered cholesterol levels. Later, Robert E. Hodges
M.D., a member of that initial team, conducted separate research at the University of Iowa
Hospitals Department of Medicine. He found within only four weeks of ingesting daily
amounts of soy protein, the cholesterol levels of nearly every volunteer in the study
plummeted.
Next came research from
Italy, conducted at the University of Milan's prestigious Center for the Study of
Metabolic Diseases and Hyperlipidemia. A study there showed that volunteers with
overly-high cholesterol levels averaging 353 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) who had been
placed on low-fat diets, fared substantially better when fed soy protein! In fact, the
control group who stayed on the low-fat diet alone showed no change in cholesterol levels
whatsoever, whereas the cholesterol levels of the subjects eating soy dropped a' whopping
14% In only two short weeks. And in four weeks, their cholesterol levels sank 21% to an
average of 2~7 mg/dl. What's more, when some of those eating soy were asked to eliminate
the soy, but stay on their low-fat diet, their cholesterol levels suddenly leaped 20
points in only two weeks. Undoubtedly, the soy had been the sole contributing factor to
the lowered cholesterol levels.
Later, at the same University, another startling finding was
made. Volunteers were given 500 milligrams of cholesterol each day to see if the added
cholesterol would stop the soy from slashing blood cholesterol levels. But, as Dr. Messina
relates, quite to the contrary, "these volunteers experienced the same drop in
blood cholesterol as those who were given no cholesterol supplementation." In
short, adding soy to the diet lowered Serum cholesterol levels just as effectively in
people eating a high cholesterol diet as in those who weren't!
| As Dr. Messina sums up, "Since then
more than 25 clinical studies have shown that substituting soy protein for animal protein,
or even simply adding soy protein to the diet, significantly reduces cholesterol levels
regardless of the type or amount of fat in the diet. Since heart disease researchers had
already determined that when blood cholesterol goes down, so does risk of heart disease,
these results mean that soy consumption could be a potent medicine for heart disease. |
One of these more recent studies
published in the Annals or the New York Academy of Sciences showed that soy even has the
ability to suppress LDL-cholesterol oxidation in the body.
This means that soy some how suppresses the
ability of the cells that line the arteries to take up cholesterol, thereby decreasing
plaque formation and dramatically reducing the likelihood of atherosclerosis (i.e., hardening of
the arteries).
Another recent
study. conducted by Harvard researcher Dr. Charles Poole, found that colon cancer rates
were literally cut in half when American men and women added soy to their diet. Studies
on soy's ability to slash cancer rates have also shown that increased soy consumption
corresponds directly with reduced risk for lung, rectal and stomach cancers.
In women, studies undertaken by soy
researcher Dr. Kenneth Setchell reveal that eating soy resulted in a lowered exposure to
estrogen. which in turn is believed to dramatically lower cancer risk. As we mentioned
earlier, studies have already demonstrated that women who eat soy frequently have only half the
risk of breast cancer than those who rarely eat soy.
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