Diabetes now affects 24 million Americans

Diabetes now affects 24 million Americans and costs our healthcare system $174 billion per year
(1). One out of every five health care dollars is spent caring for someone diagnosed with diabetes, while one in ten health care dollars is attributed to diabetes (2). The condition comes with a number of health risks that include a 200-400% increased risk of stroke and a 200% increased overall risk of death, compared to those without diabetes of similar age.

Diabetes can lead to permanent disability and numerous health complications, including heart disease, stroke, blindness, chronic kidney disease, and amputations (1). There are a number of natural ways to help maintain blood sugar health, including chromium (3), glucomannan (4), cinnamon (5) walnuts (6) and magnesium (7). Now a new study (8) has found that soy intake may help overweight women improve their blood sugar health.

The study involved 25,872 men and 33,919 women aged 45–75 years participating in the Japan Public Health Center-Based Prospective Study (9) with no history of diabetes. They completed a 147-item food questionnaire to assess their overall soy intake, including soy protein and soy isoflavones, for 5 years.

While no benefits of soy intake were seen across the entire sample of men and women, there was a benefit of soy intake in women classified as “overweight” (having a body mass index greater than 25 kg/m2). Compared to those with the lowest 20% of soy intake (less than 43.1 grams of soy products per day), those with daily soy intake between 83.7 and 117.3 grams per day of soy products had a 38% reduced risk of diabetes.

When attempting to explain how soy can help maintain blood sugar health, the researchers pointed to the fact that soy isoflavones are structurally similar to the hormone estrogen (9) and may alter the expression of genes that are involved in insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake (10). But soy isoflavones also have non-estrogen benefits on blood sugar by preventing sugar uptake during digestion intestinal glucose uptake and also improve metabolism (11).

For the researchers, “we did observe associations suggestive of a protective role of these food factors in overweight women or, to a lesser extent, postmenopausal women.”