Control of Serum Lipids with Soy Protein

Since the beginning of the century, evidence of the cholesterol-lowering properties of dietary proteins of plant origin has been accumulating.1 These effects, particularly of soy proteins, have repeatedly been observed in carefully controlled animal models of hypercholesterolemia.2 Numerous trials in humans have attempted to reproduce the promising observations in animals, but most studies have included too few participants and have lacked the statistical power necessary to detect the effects of dietary intervention. This lack of statistically significant effects led the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association to conclude in 1993 that soy protein did not have hypocholesterolemic effects in . . .