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 Other research has found that soy can be beneficial in type 2
diabetes, so similar results with the kind of diabetes that first
occurs during pregnancy are not surprising, said senior author
Zatollah Asemi of Kashan University of Medical Sciences in Iran.
Gestational diabetes often happens during the middle of pregnancy,
and can usually be managed with a healthy diet and regular exercise,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Having high blood sugar during pregnancy may lead to high blood
pressure, a larger baby and an increased risk of needing a
C-section.
The researchers included 68 pregnant women with gestational diabetes
in their study. All were in or around their 26th week of pregnancy
at the start of the study period, and were followed until they
delivered.
The study team separated the women into two groups at random, with
half assigned to a diet where 35 percent of the protein came from
soy and the rest from animal and plant sources. The other half of
women were assigned to a diet with 70 percent of the protein from
animal sources, such as meat and cheese and 30 percent from plant
sources, such as legumes.
The women followed the diets for six weeks. Those in the soy group
received commercially available textured soy protein and directions
on how to prepare it.
At the end of the six-week period, fasting blood sugar levels and
insulin levels had decreased for women in the soy group whereas both
markers had increased for women in the comparison group.
Blood triglycerides rose in both groups, but significantly more in
the comparison group than in the soy group, according to the results
in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
“It is a little hard to be certain how much of the maternal benefit
is based on soy intake per se, versus the fact that women in the
control group were consuming a diet higher in calories and
carbohydrates than women in the intervention group,” said Andrew
Garrison of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who was not
part of the new study.
Soy intake may impact inflammatory factors in the body, Garrison
told Reuters Health by email.
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Good sources of soy are soy milk, tofu, edamame (Japanese soy
beans), roasted soy nuts and some textured vegetable proteins, he
said, and one serving of these foods contains about 10 grams of soy
protein.
“So women would have to consume a reasonably large quantity of these
to meet the 50 grams per day studied in this paper,” he said.
There are no dangers of consuming soy during pregnancy, Asemi told
Reuters Health by email, but women should not change their diet in
pregnancy without consulting their doctor.
“I don't think this one small study should mandate a change in
practice, although it would certainly warrant further study,”
Garrison said.
Women should still focus on better-studied interventions, like
controlling overall weight gain, for improving pregnancy outcomes
with gestational diabetes, he said.
“This study does provide further support for the concept that
decreasing the overall caloric and carbohydrate intake can be
helpful in improving metabolic markers,” he said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1LVvjUe Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism, online October 27, 2015.
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