Re: Salute, ambiente ed eticità: vegan vs onnivori

Inviato da  Daemon il 17/8/2006 20:36:12

The article’s author, Kaayla Daniel, repeatedly says that people of China, Japan and other countries in Asia eat very little soy, but this is a misleading half truth. It is true that in parts of Asia, most notably China, soy consumption has been low. But Asia is a very large area with several billion people.

What’s interesting here is not the average soy consumption for the whole of Asia, but the soy consumption in those parts of Asia which demonstrate the highest levels of human health. And there is no question about where that is. The elder population of Okinawa (a prefecture of Japan) have the best health and greatest longevity on the planet. (vedi immagine )

This is important because the highest soy consumption in the world is in Okinawa.The people of Okinawa have repeatedly been shown to be the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world. This has been demonstrated conclusively by the renowned Okinawa Centenarian Study, a 25-year study sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Health.

How much soy have the elder Okinawans eaten throughout their lives? The Okinawa Centenarian Study included an extremely thorough analysis of food consumption in the prefecture. The principle investigators and authors of the study (Makoto Suzuki, M.D., Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., and D. Craig Willcox, Ph.D.) state: “Okinawan elders eat an average of two servings of flavonoid-rich soy products per day.”

This is about 20 times more than the amount of soy Kaayla Daniel claims “Asians really eat.” When she says “there is no historical precedent for eating the large amounts of soy food now being consumed,” she is incorrect. Soy makes up twelve percent of the diet of Okinawan elders.

The authors of the Okinawan Centenarian Study analyzed the diet and health profiles of Okinawan elders and compared them to other elder populations throughout the world. They conclude that high soy consumption is one of the main reasons that Okinawans are at extremely low risk for hormone–dependent cancers, including cancers of the breast, prostate, ovaries, and colon. Compared to North Americans, they have a staggering 80 percent less breast cancer and prostate cancer, and less than half the ovarian cancer and colon cancer.

This enormously reduced cancer risk arises in part, the study’s authors say, from the Okinawans large consumption of isoflavones from soy. This is an important finding. The lowest cancer rates in the industrialized world are found in the Okinawans who consume the most soy.

Indeed, the authors of the 25-year Okinawa Centenarian Study state that high soy consumption in Okinawa is one of the primary reasons elder Okinawans have 80 percent fewer heart attacks than North Americans do. Their high soy consumption is also why, if Okinawans do suffer a heart attack, they are more than twice as likely to survive.

It is not an accident that in Okinawa, home to the highest soy consumption in the world, heart disease is minimal, breast cancer is so rare that screening mammography is not needed, and most aging men have never heard of prostate cancer. The three leading killers in the West — coronary heart disease, stroke and cancer — occur in Okinawans with the lowest frequency in the world.

There’s also the fact that elder Okinawans have much stronger bones than we do, and less than half the hip fractures that we do. The authors of the Okinawa Centenarian Study attribute the increased bone strength and health in Okinawa to soy consumption. Many other studies confirm in fact the connection between increased soy consumption and reduced osteoporosis.