Mix the following: obesity, high blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol levels to insulin resistance will give you metabolic syndrome - a cluster of conditions that is precursor to heart disease and type-2 diabetes.

Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of heart disease by two to four times that than the normal population and increases the risk of type-2 diabetes by nine to 30 times, not to mention its detrimental effects to the kidneys, liver, ovaries, a person's ability to sleep and even dementia.

Of course, we've all heard it before that with such conditions a healthy, well-balanced diet plays a critical role in reducing the risks. Adding soy to that diet can significantly improve the problems associated with metabolic syndrome according to a new research from Harvard University School of Public Health.

Soy protein and soy nuts each exhibited a beneficial effect on components of the syndrome, but soy nuts had the strongest impact, perhaps because they provided soy protein as well as polyunsaturated ("good") fat and contained a higher amount of soybean isoflavones.

According to statistics, metabolic syndrome affects up to 30 percent of the industrialized world's population, and is expected to affect 50 to 75 million Americans by the year 2010.

Well, soy is our new best friend: it would help to keep us away from metabolic syndrome, away from heart disease and especially away from type-2 diabetes.

Where I am, we are not really into soy and soy products. Will anyone tell me how difficult (or easy) to incorporate it in one's diet?

[The Harvard University School of Public Health study was conducted in collaboration with Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (Iran) and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.]

Source: Talk Soy

[photo credit: nature's bounty]