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Soy isoflavones enhance coronary vascular reactivity in atherosclerotic female macaques
E K Honoré1, J K Williams, M S Anthony
1Comparative Medicine Clinical Research Center, Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Objective:
To examine the effects of soy phytoestrogens on coronary vascular reactivity in atherosclerotic male and female rhesus monkeys.
Design:
A prospective, randomized, blinded, controlled study.
Setting:
Comparative Medicine Clinical Research Center of an academic medical center.
Patient(S):
Twenty-two young adult rhesus monkeys with pre-existing diet-induced atherosclerosis.
Intervention(S):
Monkeys were fed soy-based diets for 6 months identical in composition, except that the isoflavones were extracted from one flow-isoflavone) and intact in the other (high-isoflavone). Quantitative coronary angiography was performed at the end of the study period. Females in the low-isoflavone group under went a second angiography after an acute IV dose of genistein.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Percent change in diameter of the proximal left circumflex coronary artery in response to intracoronary acetylcholine and nitroglycerin, compared with control diameter.
Result(S):
Arteries from males constricted in response to acetylcholine. Arteries from females in the low-isoflavone group constricted (-6.2% +/- 2.8%, mean +/- SEM), whereas arteries from females in the high-isoflavone group dilated (6.4% +/- 1.2%, mean +/- SEM). Intravenous administration of genistein caused dilation in the previously constricting low-isoflavone females (3.3% +/- 2.8%).
Conclusion(S):
Like mammalian estrogens, dietary soy isoflavones enhance the dilator response to acetylcholine of atherosclerotic arteries in female monkeys.