DO SOY SUPPLEMENTS PROTECT AGAINST HEART DISEASE?

[Guest guest]

DO SOY SUPPLEMENTS PROTECT AGAINST HEART DISEASE?

 

If the articles written and spawned by Fallon and Enig were to be

believed, just about everything we've been taught to believe about

soy's benefits is completely backwards. What about soy's vaunted

reputation (and FDA approval) for bringing down cholesterol

levels? " For most of us, " say Fallon and Enig, " giving up steak and

eating veggieburgers instead will not bring down blood cholesterol

levels. "

 

The kernel of truth in Fallon and Enig's statement is that

soy consumption tends to bring down total cholesterol levels most in

people whose cholesterol levels are high.

 

But even people with normal levels benefit from eating more soy,

according to dozens of studies, because it improves the ratio

between

HDL (good) and LDL (bad) cholesterol.

 

This ratio is now recognized by

the American Heart Association to be an even more important factor

than

total cholesterol levels in heart disease risk.

 

In 2000, the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association

published a major statement in the peer-reviewed journal

Circulation, officially recommending the inclusion of 25 grams or

more of soy protein, with its associated phytochemicals intact

 

(i.e., not in the form of an isolated soy protein supplement),

in the daily diet as a means of promoting heart health.

 

This recommendation is consistent with the FDA's recent ruling

allowing

soy protein products to carry the health claim: " 25 grams/day of soy

protein, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may

reduce the risk of heart disease. "

 

What do the soy pooh pooh-ers say to this? They say that lowered

cholesterol levels, even those lowered by diet, are

dangerous.

 

" Studies in which cholesterol levels were lowered through

either diet or drugs, " claim Fallon and Enig, " have consistently

resulted in a greater number of deaths in the treatment groups than

in controls. "

 

To document this remark, which is entirely unsupported

in the scientific literature, the authors provide a footnote to an

article written by themselves.

 

Elsewhere they write: " The truth is that cholesterol is your best

friend… When cholesterol levels in the blood are high, it's because

the body needs cholesterol… There is no greater risk of heart

disease at cholesterol levels of 300 than at 180. "

 

That's quite a point of view, ignoring as it does nearly everything

that has been learned about heart disease and cholesterol in the

past 30 years by medical science.

 

The Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial, for

example, is considered the broadest and most expensive research

project in medical history.

 

Sponsored by the federal government, it took over ten years of

systematic research, and cost over $150,000,000.

 

George Lundberg,

M.D., the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association,

where the gargantuan study was first published, said that the study

proved that even small changes in our blood cholesterol levels

produce dramatic changes in heart disease rates.

 

Charles Glueck, M.D., director of the University of Cincinnati Lipid

Research Center, one of the twelve major centers participating in

the project, noted:

 

" For every one percent reduction in total blood

cholesterol level, there is a two percent reduction of heart disease

risk. "