Thursday, January 05, 2006
Soy may be bad for males with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
NutraIngredents reports that Soy could worsen heart disease, study:
New research published today reveals that consuming soy could have a “severe” impact on a genetic heart condition that affects one in 500 people, though the authors caution that the effect has so far only been observed in male mice.
The study, which appears in today’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, is the first of its kind amidst a body of evidence linking soy to a number of health benefits.
According to scientists at the University of Colorado, male mice carrying the mutation for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, were severely affected by a soy diet, exhibiting progressively enlarged heart muscles and eventual heart failure.
But when the mice were switched to a diet of milk protein casein, their condition “improved markedly,” said the researchers...
According to lead author of the new study, Professor Leslie Leinwand, the research shows that “at least in mice, diet can have a more profound effect on heart disease than any drug that we could imagine.”
“We have no information about how this work might translate into humans,” she told FoodNavigator-USA, adding that there is also no evidence that healthy animals could be affected.
“We only see the negative effects on a specific genetic heart disease model and only in males,” she said.
Female mice carrying the mutation for HCM apparently remained “relatively unaffected” by the soy diet due to the fact that they are constantly exposed to naturally circulating levels of estrogen compounds and are therefore less sensitive than males to the change in estrogen level as a result of the soy diet.
