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Cross-Cultural Comparisons
Cardiovascular Disease
Cancer
Soy: The Healthy Differentiation
Cross-Cultural Comparisons
While people in Western cultures know soy
as a superior source of plant protein, soyfoods
have never become the staple of Western
diets that they were in the East. But that
could be changing.
Soy protein is now recognized as the only
complete protein from a plant source. That
means soy protein contains all of the essential
amino acids that you must get from food.
These amino acids are present in just the
right balance to meet your body's need for
protein. More good news - soy protein is
equal in protein quality to animal proteins
such as meat, milk, and egg proteins.
The second area of interest involves soy
and the effect it could have on the prevalence
of several common chronic diseases. These
include heart disease and some specific
cancers, among others.
Cardiovascular Disease
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) refers to diseases
and conditions that affect your heart and
arteries, including heart attack, stroke
and high blood pressure. Although CVD is
a major cause of death in the United States
and most developed countries, not all populations
have the same degree of risk.
Compare death rates from CVD in the United
States and Japan, for example, and you'll
see startling differences. CVD death rates
for both men and women are more than twice
as high in the United States than in Japan.
Cancer
Epidemiology also reveals significant differences
between East and West in death rates from
certain cancers. Breast cancer in women
and prostate cancer in men are the most
common cancers and second leading causes
of cancer death in Americans. Comparisons
of death rates from these cancers in the
United States and Japan show that, here
again, the Japanese have a clear health
advantage.
Compared with the Japanese,
death rates for breast cancer are more than
2 1/2 times higher in American women and
death rates for prostate cancer are more
than three times higher in American men.
Soy: The Healthy
Differentiator
Researchers began looking for an explanation
of the dramatically lower death rates from
CVD and certain cancers in Japan when compared
with the United States and many other Western
countries.
Although there are many differences between
East and West, a great deal of interest
focused on diet, and specifically soy protein
consumption.
On average, Americans consume only 1-3
grams of soy protein a day. The average
soy protein intake in Asia, on the other
hand, ranges from about 10 grams a day in
China to 30-50 grams a day in Japan and
Taiwan.3 As a rule, Asians average consuming
20-50 times more soyfoods than Americans.
However, when Asians migrate to the West,
their diets change over time. In one survey,
the soyfood intake of Chinese people living
in China was 10 - 15 times higher than that
of Chinese people in California and Hawaii.
Scientists have noted that the risk of
many chronic diseases increases in Asians
who move to the West. For example, researchers
compared the incidence of breast cancer
in Chinese-American and Japanese-American
women born in Asia with those born in the
United States and with American-born Caucasian
women.
They found that, compared with Caucasians,
breast cancer risk was about 50% lower in
women born in Asia and 25% lower in American-born
Asians.6 Other researchers have noted that
as Japanese men move from Japan to parts
of the world where prostate cancer is more
common, their incidence increases.
This same trend holds true for heart disease.
One study showed that heart disease mortality
was lowest in men living in Japan, intermediate
in Japanese men living in Hawaii, and highest
in Japanese men living in California. These
findings support evidence that external
factors, including dietary choices, influence
death rates from heart disease.
There's no direct evidence that the reduced
intake of soyfoods in Japanese people who
migrate to the West plays a role in their
increased risk of chronic diseases. However,
dietary changes in general-possibly including
soyfood intake in particular-most certainly
play a part.
For more information Visit:
American Heart Association www.americanheart.org
American Institute for Cancer Research www.aicr.org
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