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Nutrition and Disease

Consumption of Soy Isoflavones Does Not Affect Plasma Total Homocysteine or Asymmetric Dimethylarginine Concentrations in Healthy Postmenopausal Women^1,2

Manja Reimann^*,3, Jutta Dierkes, Anja Carlsohn^*, Duncan Talbot^**, Marika Ferrari, Jesper Hallund, Wendy L. Hall, Katerina Vafeiadou, Ulrich Huebner^#, Francesco Branca, Susanne Bugel, Christine M. Williams, H.-J. Franz Zunft^* and Corinna Koebnick^*

^* German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany; Department of Clinical Chemistry, University of Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany; ^** Unilever Corporate Research, Colworth House, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, UK; Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione, Rome, Italy; The Royal Veterinary & Agricultural University, Research Department of Human Nutrition, Center for Advanced Food Studies, Frederiksberg, Denmark; School of Food Biosciences, The University of Reading, Reading, UK; and ^# Department of Clinical Chemistry, Saarland University Hospital, Homburg, Germany

³ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:reimann{at}mail.dife.de.

ABSTRACT

Postmenopausal women are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease because many risk factors are aggravated by menopause. Phytoestrogens may modulate risk factors favorably, involving mechanisms similar to estrogen. The effect of phytoestrogens on the atherogenic amino acids homocysteine and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) was investigated in a controlled intervention study in healthy postmenopausal women. A multicenter, double-blind, crossover intervention trial in 89 postmenopausal women from Denmark, Germany, and the UK was performed. Subjects consumed fruit cereal bars with or without soy isoflavones (50 mg/d) for 8 wk each with an 8-wk washout period in between. Urinary phytoestrogens increased significantly after isoflavone intervention (P < 0.001). Isoflavone supplementation did not affect plasma total homocysteine or ADMA. For homocysteine, changes from baseline were 0.32 µmol/L (range: –0.31–0.92; 95% CI 0.13–0.72), and 0.29 µmol/L (range: –0.45–1.09; 95% CI 0.01–0.63, P = 0.286) for isoflavone treatment and placebo, respectively. For ADMA concentrations, changes from baseline were –0.02 µmol/L (range: –0.08–0.03; 95% CI –0.04–0.01, and 0.00 µmol/L (range: –0.05–0.03; 95% CI –0.03–0.01, P = 0.397) for isoflavone treatment and placebo, respectively. There was no association between plasma total homocysteine and ADMA. Changes from baseline in plasma ADMA and folate were negatively correlated (r = –0.18, P = 0.017). These results challenge the overall health effect of isoflavone supplementation in healthy postmenopausal women.

KEY WORDS: • total homocysteine • asymmetric dimethylarginine • nitric oxide metabolites • postmenopausal women • cardiovascular disease

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