Do soyfoods impact cognitive function?
Recent data from clinical trails on humans finds that soy may actually improve brain function, and does not decrease it. Recent studies are finding that soy isoflavones may enhance short term memory and executive function in women. In a study of 30 cognitively-healthy adults over the age of 60, those who reported eating soyfoods as part of their normal diet performed better on cognitive tests than those who did not. (70) One previous study raised questions about soy’s impact on cognitive function in older men, but the interpretation of the data, collected for another purpose, were flawed. A University of Hawaii researcher, Dr. Lon White, reviewing previous data collected on food intake from Japanese-American men observed a possible association between high tofu intake and loss of cognitive function. The men in the population study who consumed large amounts of tofu differed significantly from the other men in the study: they were older by over two years (may account for the differences
