Eating black soya beans could lower fat and cholesterol levels and may help prevent diabetes, a study suggests.
Yellow soya is already known to lower cholesterol, but black soya is used in traditional oriental medicine as a treatment for diabetes.
The Korean study found rats who got 10% of their energy from black soya gained half the weight of those who had none, Chemistry and Industry reports?
UK diabetes experts warned black soya alone would not prevent the condition.
In the study, also reported in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, the researchers from Hanyang University, Seoul, fed 32 rats a high-fat diet.
The animals were divided into four groups. One group was given no black soya protein while the other groups derived either two, six or 10% of their energy from the food.
After 28 days, it was found that the animals which ate the most black soya had gained half as much weight as those who had had none.
The group who had eaten most black soya also levels of total blood cholesterol that were 25% lower and of LDL “bad” cholesterol that were 60% lower than those who ate none.
The researchers, led by Shin Joung Rho, said the study showed that eating black soya prevented weight gain and improved cholesterol levels, but did not suggest why the food might have the effects.
Fat storage
But David Bender, of the Royal Free and University College Medical School, London, suggested the protein might affect fat metabolism in the liver and fatty tissue, reducing synthesis of new fatty acids and cholesterol.
He said: “The key problem in type 2 diabetes is impairment of insulin action, mainly as a result of excess abdominal adipose tissue - so loss of weight often improves glycaemic control.”
But he said eating black soya was unlikely to be a useful treatment for obesity.
“If food intake is greater than energy expenditure then the excess will have to be stored somehow, and that will be storage as fat - even if black soya is inhibiting fatty acid synthesis to some extent.”
Libby Dowling of Diabetes UK said: “The results of this study are interesting.
“However more research needs to be done to determine if the results found in rats would be replicated in humans.
“Weight is certainly a key issue when it comes to type 2 diabetes - 80% of people are overweight when diagnosed with the condition - and keeping the right weight for your height is important in helping to reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.”
She added: “Black soya beans are low in fat, high in soluble fibre and a good source of protein but they alone will not stop someone from developing diabetes.
“Regular physical activity and a healthy, balanced diet are proven to be very effective in reducing the risk of developing the condition.”
Eli Lilly and company launched a new tool in the fight to manage diabetes. It is a pen that delivers insulin and it will keep a log of your most recent doses.
Twenty-three-year-old financial planner Jonathan Bostrom knows how important keeping track of details is to his professional life and to managing his diabetes.
“I got to make sure I have that certain amount of food that I need, certain calorie? and carbohydrates and that I eat it in a certain amount of time,” he said.
Jonathan uses a pump to control his insulin doses. It keeps track of when he takes a dose and how much he has taken.
“I’ll take it right before breakfast, lunch and dinner and bedtime snack,” Jonathan said.
Now Eli Lilly and company has launched an insulin pen, another form of delivering insulin. It is the first pen on the market with a memory; it remembers a diabetic’s last 16 doses.
“Having the ability to just push a button and know when you took it and how much you took is clearly an advancement in the management of diabetes,” said Scott MacGregor of Eli Lilly.
Lilly hopes the Memoir Pen, that is used with their billion dollar a year insulin product, Humalog, will help boost the use of pens for insulin delivery. Now, less than 20 percent of Americans who use insulin use a pen to inject it.
“We hope that the introduction of our pens will help move the U.S market in that direction and we want to be the leaders in pen device technology,” MacGregor.
As someone who has had diabetes for 13 years, Jonathan believes the answer to managing diabetes lies primarily in self-discipline, with a helping hand from technology.
“OK, I have a great amount of discipline in taking care of myself and these tools are going to help me get further to that goal of really nailing my blood sugar where I want it to be so that I avoid those problems in the future,” said Jonathan.
The Memoir Pen costs $100 plus the cost of insulin cartridges. The price could hold back some people and some insurance companies from jumping on board with the pen. But Lilly believes it will catch on because they say it is more accurate than using a vial and syringe. source