2/2/00

Contacts:
Suzanne Hendrich, Family and Consumer Sciences, (515) 294-0859
Pat Murphy, Food Science and Human Nutrition, (515) 294-1970
Barbara McManus, Agriculture Information, (515) 294-0707

FEEDING STUDY TO ANALYZE CHOLESTEROL LOWERING PROPERTIES OF SOY

AMES, Iowa -- Soyfoods can lower cholesterol levels but researchers are still searching for the key to understanding why this occurs. Iowa State University food scientists will soon begin a breakfast feeding study to try to discover the compound in soy that lowers cholesterol.

Nutrition scientist Suzanne Hendrich said the goal is to find out if the soy protein lowers cholesterol. "Using purified proteins in a human feeding study hasn't been done before and we hope we can find out if this contributes to the health benefit," she said.

In February researchers will provide a daily breakfast of soy muffins to 20 participants for three weeks at ISU's Human Metabolic Unit. The participants are moderately active women between the ages of 18 and 40 who have high cholesterol levels.

The subjects will be randomly divided into three groups. Two of the groups will eat muffins containing 25 grams of soy protein, one group with and one group without isoflavones, substances in soy that may have cholesterol-lowering effects. The third group will eat muffins containing 25 grams of milk protein.

"It will give us a little more information about what is going on in terms of the cholesterol lowering effects and what ingredient seems to have this effect," Hendrich said. "After this study we should have a relatively good sense of whether soy proteins lower cholesterol or not."

Food scientist Pat Murphy prepared 66 pounds of soy protein at ISU's Center for Crops Utilization Research for the feeding tests. "No other research group has the ability to process commercial defatted white soyflakes in the quantity and the purity that we are able to produce," Murphy said.

Interest in soy research has increased since the Food and Drug Administration ruled in October to allow food products containing soy protein to carry labels promoting the health benefits of soy.

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