Although there is some epidemiologic evidence that soy may reduce risk of osteoporotic fracture in women, it is not known whether this risk reduction also occurs for men. The authors examined gender-specific associations between soy intake and hip fracture risk in the Singapore Chinese Health Study, a prospective cohort of 63,257 Chinese living in Singapore. At recruitment between 1993 and 1998...

In adult rats, elongation of cardiac myocytes (CMs) correlates with dilatation (and sometimes dysfunction) of cardiac ventricles. Although sex steroids may constitute one possible factor that affects the dimensions of CMs, studies on their effects in rodents is complicated by the fact that most commercial soy-based diets also contain abundant phytoestrogens. We report that feeding Wistar-Kyoto ...

Seaweeds and soy are two commonly eaten foods in Asia. Both have been reported to affect thyroid function, seaweed because of its iodine content and soy because of its goitrogenic effect. Twenty-five healthy postmenopausal women (mean age 58 years) completed a double-blinded randomized crossover study. Ten capsules (5 g/day) of placebo or seaweed (Alaria esculenta), providing 475 microg of iodi...

A 12-month randomized double blind controlled trial was conducted among 182 Indonesian postmenopausal women aged 47 to 60 years to determine the effect of 100 mg/day soy isoflavone supplementation on vascular endothelial function such as vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), nitric oxide (NO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) as oxidative stress marker. The subjects were randomized to the interve...

Previous reports of soy extracts and isoflavone-enriched preparations studied in animals and humans have found that these molecules, when given at appropriate doses, have positive effects on the skeleton, including improvements in bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD). A reduction in fracture risk of human subjects has not yet been shown in a prospective trial. Isoflavones, ...

The search for anticancer MMP-9 inhibitors (MMPIs) in food products has become a major goal for research. MMPIs in soy have been related only to saponins and isoflavones, but recently, low specific protein fractions in soybeans were shown to reduce MMP-9 activity as well. The present work aimed at comparing the MMPI potential of protein fractions (P) and non-protein fractions (NP) isolated from...

The incidence of prostate cancer is much lower in Asian than Western populations. Environmental factors, such as dietary habits, may play a major role in the causation of prostate cancer. Although isoflavones have been suggested to show a preventive effect against prostate cancer in animal experiments, the results of epidemiologic studies are inconsistent. Here, we conducted a population-based ...

Soy isoflavones may have applications in cancer prevention and anti-inflammation, therefore this study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with black soybean on the immune response in the senescence-accelerated-prone mice (SAMP8) and -resistant mice (SAMPR1, as controls). The mechanism of isoflavones was also investigated. Six-month-old male SAMP8 and SAMR1 mice w...