Soy Milk and Ulcerative Colitis
Written by Emily Fucarino
Edited by Jada Co
May 2, 2021
Edited by Jada Co
May 2, 2021
Soy milk: it's in the drinks of major coffee chains and in most major grocery stores. But could it also be used medicinally? While currently this is just a hypothesis, the research exploring soy milk as a treatment for inflammatory disease offers insight into future study methodologies and current evidence supporting this hypothesis.
Scientifically, what makes soy milk an interesting topic to research is its anti-inflammatory properties (Fernandez et al., 2012), which could potentially be directed against inflammatory diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in a therapeutic manner. Since dairy milk is not recommended for many people with IBD due to its pro-inflammatory properties, fortified soy milk offers a practical alternative as well as a source of dietary calcium (Sadeghi et al., 2020).
There is a demand for new IBD therapies because many current medications for IBD have significant detrimental side effects including “increasing anti-antibody reactions, risk of allergy, [and] infection”(Sadeghi et al., 2020). Thus, the possibility of a safe, dietary treatment for IBD is an appealing scientific possibility to investigate.
When looking into the effects of soy milk on IBD, it is important for researchers to establish boundaries in their studies, such as studying the effects on just one IBD at a time. Given that one of the most common IBDs is ulcerative colitis (UC) (Sadeghi et al., 2020), it is a prime candidate for these studies. UC causes symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal and rectal pain and bleeding along with further complications such as widespread inflammation, toxic megacolon, loss of bone density. Given the side effects of traditional IBD medicines, there is a demand for new treatments. Could soy milk be one of them?
Currently, little to no studies have explored the effects of soy milk on UC disease management. One study seeks to change this by providing a framework for future studies on their relationship (Sadeghi et al., 2020). This study identifies areas of focus in future clinical trials that will point to the clinical value of soy milk as a treatment for UC.
Since ulcerative colitis is a disease of the gut, the study designers accounted for the key factors related to gut health, including the gut microbiota-- the normal microbial residents of the gut that can have both positive and negative effects on gut health and immunity.
Accordingly, one proposed measure of the efficacy of soy milk against UC would be changes in the gut microbiota of UC patients after the trial. Fecal transplants of gut microbiota have already been shown to be effective in alleviating UC symptoms (Narula et al., 2017), suggesting that the makeup of the gut microbiota plays a role in disease severity. Other recommended measures of the impact of soy milk on UC include levels of the biological residues associated with inflammation as well as quantifications of the bacterial species present (Sadeghi et al., 2020). Questions remain concerning the extent to which soy milk consumption in UC patients can change the microbiota as well as the extent to which these changes impact their experiences with UC. In addition to the results of this ongoing study, the authors hope to provide a scaffolding for future research on this topic.
In the words of the authors, the purpose of this study outline is to evaluate the physical and therapeutic effects of soy milk consumption on people living with UC. The possibility of an effective treatment without the immunological side effects of current medications is appealing, as it could improve the health and quality of life of UC patients (Sadeghi et al., 2020). The recruitment phase of this study has already taken place and results are currently pending.
Works Cited
Fernandez-Raudales, Dina, Jennifer L. Hoeflinger, Neal A. Bringe, Stephen B. Cox, Scot E. Dowd, Michael J. Miller, and Elvira Gonzalez de Mejia. “Consumption of Different Soymilk Formulations Differentially Affects the Gut Microbiomes of Overweight and Obese Men.” Gut Microbes 3, no. 6 (2012): 490–500. https://doi.org/10.4161/gmic.21578.
Narula, Neeraj, Zain Kassam, Yuhong Yuan, Jean-Frederic Colombel, Cyriel Ponsioen, Walter Reinisch, and Paul Moayyedi. “Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: Fecal Microbiota Transplantation for Treatment of Active Ulcerative Colitis.” OUP Academic. Oxford University Press, September 5, 2017. https://academic.oup.com/ibdjournal/article/23/10/1702/4791645.
Sadeghi, O., Milajerdi, A., Siadat, S. D., Keshavarz, S. A., Sima, A. R., Vahedi, H., . . . Esmaillzadeh, A. (2020). Effects of soy milk consumption on gut microbiota, inflammatory markers, and disease severity in patients with ulcerative colitis: A study protocol for a randomized clinical trial. Trials, 21(1). doi:10.1186/s13063-020-04523-8
Image Source: Emily Fucarino