Health: Soy and the Magic Bullet (article)

[Guest guest]

This, from the IVU-Veg-news today - but please read to

the end - they don't say that soy is baaad for you,

just not that it's not a cure-all in itself. Clearly

soy doesn't *contribute* to high cholesterol and its

ills . . .

 

Best, Pat

 

(US) Heart Association Derides Soy Claims

 

DALLAS (AP) - Veggie burgers and tofu might not be so

great at warding

off heart disease after all. An American Heart

Association committee

reviewed a decade of studies on soy's benefits and

came up with

results that are now casting doubt on the health claim

that soy-based

foods and supplements significantly lower cholesterol.

 

The findings could lead the Food and Drug

Administration to

re-evaluate rules that currently allow companies to

tout a

cholestorol-lowering benefit on the labels of

soy-based food.

 

The panel also found that neither soy nor the soy

component isoflavone

reduced symptoms of menopause, such as " hot flashes, "

and that

isoflavones don't help prevent breast, uterine or

prostate cancer.

Results were mixed on whether soy prevented

postmenopausal bone loss.

 

Based on its findings, the committee said it would not

recommend using

isoflavone supplements in food or pills. It concluded

that

soy-containing foods and supplements did not

significantly lower

cholesterol, and it said so in a statement recently

published in the

journal Circulation.

....

The FDA in 1999 started allowing manufacturers to

claim that soy

products might cut the risk of heart disease after

studies showed at

least 25 grams of soy protein a day lowered

cholesterol. A year later,

the Heart Association recommended soy be included in a

diet low in

saturated fat and cholesterol.

 

But as more research emerged, the Heart Association

decided to revisit

the issue. The committee members reviewed 22 studies

and found that

large amounts of dietary soy protein only reduced LDL,

or " bad "

cholesterol, about 3 percent and had no effect on HDL,

or " good "

cholesterol, or on blood pressure.

 

They did a separate analysis of isoflavones. The

review of 19 studies

suggested that soy isoflavones also had no effect on

lowering LDL

cholesterol or other lipid risk factors.

....

" Soy isn't a magic bullet, but it can be a valuable

contributor to a

heart-healthy diet, " said Jo Ann Carson, a professor

of clinical

nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern

Medical Center at

Dallas who was not part of the panel.

....

" There's no quick fix, " he said. " Our bad cholesterol

numbers would

certainly get worse if instead of eating tofu burgers

we went out and

had hamburgers each night of the week. "

 

--

full story:

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20060124/D8FAN5SG2.html