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Urinary isoflavone excretion as a compliance measure in a soy intervention among young girls: a pilot study

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 59, pages 369–375 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective:

To investigate the compliance of young girls with a soy intervention.

Design:

An 8-week dietary intervention and urine sample collection.

Setting:

Free-living girls.

Subjects:

A convenience sample of 8- to 14-y-old girls (20 started and 17 finished the study) recruited through flyers distributed to staff members and previous study participants.

Intervention:

The girls consumed one daily serving of soymilk, soy nuts, or tofu, completed 3-day food records, kept daily soy intake logs, and collected weekly urine samples.

Main outcome measures:

Compliance with the intervention was evaluated by daily soy intake logs, 3-day food records analyzed by the center's Food Composition and Food Groups Servings Databases, and weekly urinary isoflavone excretion using high-pressure liquid chromatography. The statistical analysis included paired t-tests, analysis of variance, and Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficients.

Results:

Daily soy intake logs indicated a mean intake of 6.28 servings out of a maximum of 7.0 servings per week. The food records revealed a six-fold increase in isoflavone intake during the study period (P<0.01) which was confirmed by an increase in urinary isoflavone excretion of similar magnitude (23.3–142.1 nmol/mg creatinine, P=0.02).

Conclusions:

This study demonstrated the ability of young girls to consume one daily soy serving and the usefulness of urinary isoflavones as a primary compliance measure. The high urinary isoflavone excretion levels detected in girls as compared to adult women suggest less intestinal degradation and/or greater absorption of isoflavones in nonadult populations. This finding requires further investigations into the pharmacokinetics of isoflavones.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the girls who participated in this study. This investigation was supported by a Research Centers in Minority Institutions Award, P20 RR11091, from the National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health. Thank you to DrSoy Nutrition, Aloha Tofu Factory and Foodland Supermarkets for supplying us with soy foods. We would also like to acknowledge our dedicated staff members for their efforts, including Andrew Williams, MA, Debra Petitpain, MS, RD, and Laurie Custer, BS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

    G Maskarinec, Y Morimoto, S Hebshi & A A Franke

  2. Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    C Oshiro & R Novotny

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  1. G Maskarinec
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  2. C Oshiro
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  3. Y Morimoto
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  4. S Hebshi
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  5. R Novotny
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  6. A A Franke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to G Maskarinec.

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Guarantor: G Maskarinec.

Contributors: GM conceived the idea for the study and directed the project, the analysis, and the manuscript preparation; CO developed the nutritional education strategy; CO and YM prepared the first draft; YM performed the statistical analysis; SH coordinated the project and wrote part of the methods; RN provided nutritional consultation; AAF participated in the planning and was responsible for the analytical work; all authors reviewed the final manuscript.

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Maskarinec, G., Oshiro, C., Morimoto, Y. et al. Urinary isoflavone excretion as a compliance measure in a soy intervention among young girls: a pilot study. Eur J Clin Nutr 59, 369–375 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602083

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602083

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