Soy Does Not Live Up to Health Claims

The American Heart Association now claims that soy has no effect on heart disease and does not lower cholesterol. The evidence has always been sketchy on this claim, so it's good news that they've clarifed the issue with new research.

The report also noted that soy isoflavones provide no benefits in preventing breast, uterine, or prostate cancer. Soy and its isoflavones have no impact on menopausal "hot flashes," either.

I suspect that continued research will find that soy actually increases cancer risk in some people.

From the ABC News story:

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.

Read the rest here.