Soy nuts help reduce blood Pressure in postmenopausal women

A new study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, reports that using soy nuts as the source of protein recuces blood pressure in postmenopausal women by up to 10 percent.

Sixty post-menopausal women paticipated in the study. All women were put on the TLC diet for eight weeks, but in one group, protein source was replaced with unsalted soy nuts. Blood pressure was measured at the beginning and end of the eight-week period.

At the beginning of the study, 12 of the women were classed as hypertensive. "Soy nut supplementation significantly reduced systolic [top number] and diastolic [bottom number] blood pressure in all 12 hypertensive women and in 40 of the 48 normotensive women," report the authors. Hypertensive women experienced a 9.9% recuction of systolic blood pressure and 6.8% reduction in diastolic blood pressure. Nonhypertensive women experienced reductions of 5.2% and 2.9%, respectively.