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How Soy Helps Reduce Diabetes Risk
Soy Foods and Soy Products Provide Powerful
Nutritional Properties
Nutrition research scientists led at the University of Massachusetts -
Amherst have now identified the molecular pathway that allows
soy-rich foods containing bioactive compounds (known as isoflavones)
to lower diabetes and heart disease risk.
Eating
soy foods has been shown to lower cholesterol, decrease blood
glucose
levels and improve glucose tolerance in people with diabetes.
The
study shows that the foods we eat can have significant impact on
health
outcomes by interacting with certain genes. Recent research also
suggests that diet can even change the copy number of a certain gene,
leading to biological changes.
Soy is the most common source of isoflavones in food. In new experiments,
the molecular nutrition researchers who study how fat cells develop in the
body, focused on daidzein, one of the two main isoflavones found in soy.
Many epidemiological observations and human clinical studies have shown
that adding soy to an individual's diet is associated with lower diabetes risk
and improved insulin sensitivity, as well as lower cardiovascular disease risk,
The researchers noted, until now the direct target tissue and molecular pathways
by which soy exerts its anti-diabetic effects was not clearly understood.
The
team of researchers along with researchers at Southern Illinois
University,
with others at the universities of Tennessee and Florida,
had earlier found that
dietary isoflavones reduced the severity of
diabetes in an animal model of the
disease by increasing the activity
of certain transcription regulators in the fat tissue.
For the current
study, they hypothesized that daidzein and its metabolite, equol, are
part of this activation process.
They found that daidzein and
equol enhanced adipocyte differentiation, or the
formation of fat
cells, through activation of a key transcription regulator, the same
receptor that mediates the insulin-sensitizing effects of anti-diabetes
drugs. Thus,
daidzein and equol daidzein and equol seem to work in a
similar manner as
anti-diabetic drugs currently in the market. Their
findings are reported in the
Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry,
published September 2009.
"Our results suggest that soy
isoflavones exert anti-diabetic effects by targeting
fat cell-specific
transcription factors and the downstream signaling molecules
that are
important for glucose uptake and thus insulin sensitivity," the
research
scientists note. "The new findings help us to understand the
cellular mechanisms."
demonstrating how these biologically active
compounds in soy interact to regulate
and initiate metabolic and
biological functions.
"Although some details remain to be worked
out, our data provide an additional
molecular basis for the mechanism
of insulin-sensitizing action by soy isoflavones.
These new findings
help fill a critical gap between epidemiological observations
and
clinical studies on the anti-diabetic benefits of dietary soy."
Results
demonstrate that daidzein and equol enhance adipocyte differentiation
by activating a specific receptor. The downstream responses include
increased
expression of three proteins, resulting in enhanced glucose
uptake and insulin
sensitivity.
Future studies will extend the
work to primary cultures of human cells through
collaboration with researchers at Pioneer Valley Life Science Institute and
Baystate
Medical Center in Springfield. If replicated, studies can move on to
further work in whole body systems.
Interested in Learning More About Soy Protein Isoflavones
Nutritional Supplementation?
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