Health Tip – Audio Version - Soy and blood pressure
Health Tip – Healthy Next Step: Your Guide To Lowering Your Blood Pressure With Dash (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

A little less meat and more soy might help some women lower their blood pressure. In one study, postmenopausal women who ate low-protein soy, and gave up an equivalent amount of protein from other sources, got that benefit.

For eight weeks, the women ate, over a day, about a half cup of soy nuts, containing about 25 grams of protein.

Francine Welty of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston notes that studies involving soy milk and soy cookies found similar benefits.

“It’s reasonable to predict that any of these products could be recommended to people who want to use dietary changes to lower their blood pressure.’’

But she says they would have to eat the way the women in the studies did.

The research in Archives of Internal medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Health Tip courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Last revised: September, 18 2007