Women and Heart Disease

It is often a surprise to learn that a leading cause of death for women is coronary heart disease ⁸ , ⁹ . Soy protein operates on a number of levels to reduce heart disease risk.

One of those is its ability to reduce blood cholesterol (for further detail refer to the section on heart disease). Various researchers have studied the cholesterol-lowering ability of soy protein specifically in women.

Dr. Scott Washburn ⁶ from Wake Forest University showed in peri-menopausal women that 20g of soy protein with isoflavones significantly reduced total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol compared to the control (carbohydrate) diet. This beneficial effect occurred when the soy protein was consumed in one daily dose or split over two daily doses.

A study in pre-menopausal vegetarian women by Dr. Aedin Cassidy and colleagues at the Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre in Cambridge ¹⁰ , showed that replacing animal protein with 60g of textured vegetable protein (TVP) resulted in a significant 9% reduction in total cholesterol levels. In a separate part of this study, a significant improvement in the ratio of LDL:HDL cholesterol (an indicator of heart disease risk) occurred when 28g of TVP was added to the daily diet.