For Your Heart - Soy Protein

The final installment of my “American Hearth Month” theme for February I continue with heart disease issues on this and my other blog NewMexicoWellness.blogspot.com. Here continues the discussion of heart healthy foods.

Since 1999 the FDA approved a claim on foods containing 6.25 grams of soy protein be allowed to carry a claim on its label/packaging that is can lower the risk of heart disease when combined with a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol.

However, nutrition is a science. And like any science, we must evolve and as new evidence reveals itself, we need to revise information and be responsible and provide that information to the public.

Research regarding food, nutrition, and how it is beneficial, or not as beneficial as we once thought, to our health reveals itself and we must bring that information forward to the public.

About a year ago, the FDA began its open comment period regarding the claim of soy protein and coronary heart disease. The American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association chose to respond based on reviewing scientific literature and the effects of soy protein and isoflavones on the many risk factors for heart disease including blood pressure, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and triglycerides.

Based on the AHA information and review of research since 1999, research indicates that large amounts of soy protein needs to be consumed, and that more than half of our protein needs to come from soy, and it may have a positive effect on LDL-cholesterol by a few points only when it replaces animal protein. The data also reveals that this occurs mainly in individuals who already have high cholesterol, and only affects the LDL-cholesterol and does not affect HDL, triglycerides, or blood pressure.

In the end, the AHA recommended to the FDA, that the soy and heart disease health claim be reevaluated, especially since the current data is less conclusive than what is once was.

Many people tell me that people in China or Japan eats a lot of soy and suffer very little from heart disease. While this may be true, I don’t know statistics myself, I remind people that we in the United States cannot take bits and pieces of peoples diet and/or lifestyle from another country and apply it to ourselves. If we wish to do that, we need to go to the beginning of our life and start over – or embrace the entire lifestyle: walk to market, work in a field, take on the entire lifestyle and genetic history of the country we wish to emulate. It just doesn’t cross over to the U.S.

Bottom line on soy and heart health: it isn’t as great as we once thought it was a helping to lower LDL-cholesterol. You can continue to eat/drink your soy, but it may not be helping your heart as much.

Eat Well, Live Well, Be Well - and enjoy your soy.