By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, June 6, 2007, abstracted from “Effect of Soy Nuts on Blood Pressure and Lipid Levels in Hypertensive, Prehypertensive, and Normotensive Postmenopausal Women” in the May 28, 2007 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine
As the most common primary diagnosis in the United States1 and an estimated 50 million Americans and 1 billions individual worldwide afflicted with it,2 high blood pressure is a condition that eventually leads to heart disease. Compared to women with normal blood pressure, women with high blood pressure have a 400% higher risk of getting heart disease.3
When looking further into blood pressure’s effect on increasing heart disease risk, research has started to find that for people between 40 and 70 years of age, every 20 mm Hg increase in systolic blood pressure (the top number) or 10 mm Hg increase in diastolic BP doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease.4 With statistics like these, a focus on prevention of high blood pressure and finding viable ways to achieve this can have far-reaching benefits for our healthcare system in terms of the potential amounts of money saved through helping keep blood pressure in normal range.
While blood pressure medications have been shown to help produced as much as a 40% reduction in stroke risk and a 25% reduction in heart attack risk,5 a new study6 has found that for women, helping keep their blood pressure in normal range may be as easy as getting 25 grams of protein from soy nuts each day.
In the study, 60 healthy postmenopausal women with or without high blood pressure received a diet of similar energy, fat, and protein content but either soy nuts containing 25 g of soy protein and 101 mg of isoflavones or 25 g of non-soy protein for 8 weeks.
The researchers found that, compared with the non-soy nuts group, women with high blood pressure supplementing with soy nuts lowered their systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 9.9% and 6.8%, respectively. Women with normal blood pressure in the soy nut group lowered their systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 5.2% and 2.9%, respectively. Furthermore, women classified as “pre-hypertensive”, meaning their blood pressure was between 120/80 and 140/90 mm Hg, had their systolic and diastolic blood pressures lowered by 5.5% and 2.7%, respectively, And finally, soy nut supplementation lowered LDL cholesterol levels by 11% in women with high blood pressure with no effect in women with normal blood pressure.
In addition to stating that this study was the first to compare the effects of a whole soy food in patients with normal and high blood pressure, the researchers concluded that “These findings may explain a cardioprotective effect of soy.”
Reference:
1 American Heart Association. 2002 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update. Dallas, Tex: American Heart Association; 2001
2 Cherry DK, Woodwell DA. National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2000 summary. Adv Data. 2002;328:1-32
3 Mosca L, Manson JE, Sutherland SE, et al. Cardiovascular disease in women: a statement for healthcare professionals from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 1997;96:2468-2482
4 Lewington S, Clarke R, Qizilbash N, Peto R, Collins R. Age-specific relevance of usual blood pressure to vascular mortality. Lancet. 2002;360:1903-1913
5 Neal B, MacMahon S, Chapman N. Effects of ACE inhibitors, calcium antagonists, and other blood-pressure-lowering drugs. Lancet. 2000;356:1955-1964
6 Welty FK. Effect of Soy Nuts on Blood Pressure and Lipid Levels in Hypertensive, Prehypertensive, and Normotensive Postmenopausal Women. Arch Int Med 2007; 167(10): 1060-1067
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