The Effect of Consumption of Soy Foods on the Blood Lipid Profile of Women: A Pilot Study from Qwa-Qwa

The objective of this study was to compare the long-term effect of 40-g daily whole bean soy consumption for a period of 18 mo on blood lipid levels of women. A single-system design was used and 90 women randomly selected in pen-urban Qwa-Qwa, South Africa. Measurements included dietary intake (24-h recall), anthropometric (weight and height) and biochemical lipid parameters with venous blood samples. The respondents were divided into a hypercholesterolemic and normo-cholesterolemic (NC) group and data analyses included descriptive statistics and t-tests on SPSS, version 21.0. The results showed that a large percentage (40%) of the women was hypercholesterolemic. The hypercholesterolemic group showed abnormal mean values for all the lipid parameters at baseline whereas the NC group showed total cholesterol (TC) and LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) values in the normal range, but abnormally low mean HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) (0.9 +/- 0.6) and high mean triglyceride (TG) (2.3 +/- 0.8) levels. At follow-up, the hypercholesterolemic group had significantly improved HDL-C (p=0.000), LDL-C (p=0.032) and TG (p=0.000) levels, but with significantly increased TC (p=0.01). A similar trend was observed in the NC group; however, no significantly improved HDL-C or TG values were observed. It can be concluded that dyslipidemia and obesity were prevalent amongst this group of women. The daily consumption of 40 g of whole soybean, had no significant positive effect on TC, but had a beneficial effect on LDL-C in the women in Qwa-Qwa. The HDL : LDL ratio was also improved in the in the hypercholesterolemic group, thus reducing the risk for CVD. The consumption of whole soybean thus had a beneficial effect on the lipid profile of the women in Qwa-Qwa.