The prevalence of diabetes is increasing throughout the world. In large part this is because of the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese as one of the main medical complications of obesity is diabetes. Fortunately, losing weight if obese can dramatically lower diabetes risk. Eating a more plant-based diet is also helpful as people who are vegetarians or near vegetarians are much less likely to develop diabetes. In fact, their risk is reduced by about 50% even after taking into consider their lower body weight. And now, research from Vietnam indicates that adding soyfoods to the diet is very protective against this disease.
For this new study, researchers enrolled 599 newly diagnosed cases of diabetes between the age of 40 and 65 and the same number of people without diabetes. The two groups were of a similar age and had similar numbers of men and women. Information on the frequency and quantity of soyfood consumption, together with demographics, habitual diet and lifestyle characteristics, was obtained from direct interviews. The researchers then determined whether people with diabetes were more or less likely to eat soyfoods.
The results showed that a higher intake of soyfoods was associated with about a 70% reduced risk. That is, those individuals who consumed about two servings of soyfoods per day were 70% less likely to develop diabetes. That level of protection is almost unprecedented. It’s not clear from this study why soy is protective against diabetes but other research has shown that soyfoods increase the body’s ability to use insulin and lower blood glucose levels.