|
E-mail this page to a friend!
Nutrition, Vitamins & Supplements for Seniors
Older Women with Hypertension May Reduce Blood
Pressure, Cholesterol with Soy Nuts
Reduced bad cholesterol 11%, systolic, diastolic
blood pressure 9.9%, 6.8%
May 29, 2007 – Older women with high blood pressure,
which includes more than half of all senior citizens,
may be able to lower their blood pressure and reduce their cholesterol
levels by substituting soy nuts for other protein sources in a healthy
diet. Women with hypertension have four times the risk of heart disease
compared to those with normal blood pressure and it is estimated that
about half of all senior citizens suffer with this problem.
The American Heart Association estimates that high
blood pressure (hypertension) affects approximately 50 million Americans
and 1 billion individuals worldwide. The most common-and deadly-result
is coronary heart disease, according to background information in the
article reported in the May 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine,
one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
| |
Related Stories |
|
| |
Vegetables, Fruit, Soy May Prevent Certain Cancers
Studies show results with breast, ovarian,
pancreatic, head and neck cancer
April 16, 2007
Hearts of Senior Citizens Benefit from Fish, Soy Oil
April 12, 2005
Soyfoods
in
Diet
Help
Reach
100-Year
Age
On
Japanese
Island
of
Okinawa,
Study
Says
Aug. 9, 2001
Read more
on
Nutrition, Vitamins & Supplements |
|
Francine K. Welty, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, assigned 60 healthy
post-menopausal women to eat two diets for eight weeks each in random
order.
The first diet, the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes
(TLC) diet, consisted of 30 percent of calories from fat (with 7 percent
or less from saturated fat), 15 percent from protein and 55 percent from
carbohydrates; 1,200 milligrams of calcium per day; two meals of fatty
fish (such as salmon or tuna) per week; and less than 200 milligrams of
cholesterol per day.
The other diet had the same calorie, fat and
protein content, but the women were instructed to replace 25 grams of
protein with one-half cup of unsalted soy nuts. Blood pressure and blood
samples for cholesterol testing were taken at the beginning and end of
each eight-week period.
| |
Soy Benefits |
|
| |
From FDA Consumer
Magazine, May-June 2000
The Food and Drug
Administration determined that diets with four daily soy
servings can reduce levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs),
the so-called "bad cholesterol" that builds up in blood vessels,
by as much as 10 percent.
Soy protein products can be
good substitutes for animal products because, unlike some other
beans, soy offers a "complete" protein profile. Soybeans contain
all the amino acids essential to human nutrition, which must be
supplied in the diet because they cannot be synthesized by the
human body. Soy protein products can replace animal-based
foods--which also have complete proteins but tend to contain
more fat, especially saturated fat--without requiring major
adjustments elsewhere in the diet.
From Soyfoods Assocation
According to the Soyfoods
Association, the Food and Drug Administration approved a health
claim for foods that contain at least 6.25 grams of soy. The
health claim states that, “25 grams of soy protein a day, as
part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce
the risk of heart disease.”
Read the complete FDA article, click here
Visit Soyfoods Association, click here |
|
At the beginning of the study, 12 women had high
blood pressure (140/90 milligrams of mercury or higher) and 48 had
normal blood pressure.
"Soy nut supplementation significantly reduced
systolic (top number) and diastolic (bottom number) blood pressure in
all 12 hypertensive women and in 40 of the 48 normotensive women," the
authors write.
"Compared with the TLC diet alone, the TLC diet
plus soy nuts lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure 9.9 percent
and 6.8 percent, respectively, in hypertensive women and 5.2 percent and
2.9 percent, respectively, in normotensive women."
In women with high blood pressure, the soy diet
also decreased levels of low-density lipoprotein ("bad") cholesterol by
an average of 11 percent and levels of apoliprotein B (a particle that
carries bad cholesterol) by an average of 8 percent. Cholesterol levels
remained the same in women with normal blood pressure.
"A 12-millimeter of mercury decrease in systolic
blood pressure for 10 years has been estimated to prevent one death for
every 11 patients with stage one hypertension treated; therefore, the
average reduction of 15 milligrams of mercury in systolic blood pressure
in hypertensive women in the present study could have significant
implications for reducing cardiovascular risk and death on a population
basis," the authors write.
"This study was performed in the free-living state;
therefore, dietary soy may be a practical, safe and inexpensive modality
to reduce blood pressure. If the findings are repeated in a larger group
they may have important implications for reducing cardiovascular risk in
postmenopausal women on a population basis," they conclude.
Editor's Note: This study was funded by the Harvard
Medical School's Center of Excellence in Women's Health (National
Institutes of Health); a contract from the Office on Women's Health,
Department of Health and Human Services; and in part by a grant to the
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center General Clinical Research Center
from the National Institutes of Health.
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
