What are the health benefits of fermented soy foods such as natto?

June 14, 10:32 AMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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According to the July 20, 209 MSNBC Healthcare online article in the ‘Prevention,’ column by Richard Laliberte, “When the best treatment is wrong for you: Guidelines sought to help determine most effective medical care,”   The article notes, “Each of us responds uniquely to any given medication. A drug that works 20 percent of the time, for instance, may be considered effective — even though it does nothing for 80 percent of patients.”  

Because you don’t have drugs tailored to your genes, you’re going to respond uniquely to any drug. You don’t know how fast or slow your liver or kidneys will metabolize the medicines. Your overall health plays a large part, your age, and even your ethnicity. Some ethnic groups metabolize medicines differently from other groups in the sense that the dosage needs to be adjusted. Genetics determines how a drug affects your body.
For information on this topic, you need to read the articles written not only by geneticists but also by clinical evidence specialists. You can read information published by the Center for Evidence-Based Policy at Oregon Health & Sciences University. www.ohsu.edu/ohsuedu/research/policycenter/DERP/  Read the information at the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (DERP) site. www.ohsu.edu/ohsuedu/research/policycenter/DERP/
DERP is a collaboration of public entities, the Center for Evidence-based Policy and the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center, who have joined together to produce systematic, evidence-based reviews of the comparative effectiveness and safety of drugs in many widely used drug classes, and to apply the findings to inform public policy and related activities in local settings. Check out the DERP library or the documents posted for public comment at the Draft Products site. derp.ohsu.edu/about/draft-products.cfm
 

In the 1930s, medical school students were taught that normal blood pressure was the person's age plus 100 over 90. That’s false and irresponsible.

Today you have a choice between conventional medicine and a special form of grape seed extract such as MegaNatural-BP, resveratrol, COQ10, cod liver oil/fish oil, slow breathing machines, music, isometric machines, e-waves relaxation machines, Lyco-Mato tomato extract, lower-sodium diets, vitamins, magnesium and other minerals, fermented milk products, natto, vitamin K-2, vitamin D3, silica and multiple minerals, plus a wide variety of books such as The Blood Pressure Cure, by Robert E. Kowalski or Reverse Heart Disease Now, by Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., James C. Roberts, M.D., with Martin Zucker. The trick is to find which nutrients actually lower your blood pressure and can be tailored to your individual inheritance.

There are many books written by physicians and/or medical journalists that tell you how to reduce your blood pressure in eight weeks if you stay on the regimen. How do you tailor your program? And what should you do if your doctor hands you a pill without testing you and tells you that you'll probably be on that pill the rest of your life--unless it doesn't work? How many pills will you try?

Is it all guesswork? And what will be the long-term effects of taking pills and more pills as compared to a variety of nutritional approaches, exercises, and lifestyle changes? Do you really have a choice between conventional medicine and your genes?

Today, half of women in the USA over age 65 have high blood pressure. And half of the people who suddenly die have damaged blood vessels, not high blood pressure, according to the book, The High Blood Pressure Hoax, by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. (page 3).

According to this book, there’s a rundown of all the nasty side effects caused by the drugs that may or may not have any effect. Find out the cause of your chronic situation before you swallow a pill that you're told you might have to be on for the rest of your life that you haven't researched for long-term effects. Diuretics cause a loss of potassium. But for some improperly diagnosed potassium deficiency or magnesium deficiency could be the cause of the high blood pressure in the first place.

Low potassium (or too much potassium) causes palpitations in some cases. Then more medications are prescribed to correct the arrhythmias. Sometimes eating a higher potassium diet has corrected hypertension, but not if the kidneys are so damaged that potassium worsens the kidney condition.

See the medical journal article, “Potassium depletion exacerbates essential hypertension,” Annals of Internal Medicine 115; 2:77-83, July 15, 1991. Krishna G, Gopal MD, Kapoor SC. The conclusion noted, “Dietary potassium restriction increases blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension. Both sodium retention and calcium depletion may contribute to the increase in blood pressure during potassium depletion."

A sign of low potassium is calcium excreted in the urine. The study noted, "Plasma renin activity and plasma aldosterone concentrations also decreased in patients during low potassium intake, but concentrations of arginine vasopressin and atrial natriuretic peptide, glomerular filtration rate, and renal plasma flow were unchanged. Further, low potassium intake increased urinary excretion of calcium and phosphorus and of plasma immunoreactive parathyroid hormone levels. ”

Diuretics also cause the loss of magnesium. But for some people, high blood pressure could be caused by a deficiency of magnesium. Some blood pressure drugs lower magnesium levels.

Diuretics also flush out the magnesium. Then more medicines are prescribed because your pressure rose due to the loss of magnesium. Are you sure you want to be taking one pill on top of another until the guess work points in one direction?

What if you could be suffering from an undiagnosed magnesium deficiency? See the study, “Diuretic therapy for hypertension and the risk of primary cardiac arrest,” New England Journal of Medicine, 330:1852-7, 1994. Also see, Arno W. Hoes, Diederick E. Grobbee, Jacobus Lubsen, Arie J. Man in 't Veld, Emiel van der Does, and Albert Hofman
Diuretics, ß-Blockers, and the Risk for Sudden Cardiac Death in Hypertensive Patients, Annals of Internal Medicine, Oct 1995; 123: 481 - 487.

Diuretics became almost universally used as a first-line treatment of high blood pressure because physicians are told to follow the practice guidelines as a directive for treating diseases. The problem is some people’s blood pressure is not caused by too much water in the body, by excess ‘volume.’

Instead, the essential high blood pressure could be caused by a variation in a kidney gene that creates too much renin. So when a patient takes a diuretic and finds it only makes the high blood pressure worsen, the doctor may decide that the diuretic is the wrong drug. The point is, you need to find out and not just swallow a pill after spending seven minutes in a doctor's office. You need the correct tests. Too often, routine hospital lab tests don't get specific enough to find out what actually is the cause of your high blood pressure.

According to “The High Blood Pressure Hoax,” page 7, “Scientists looked at the panel of ‘experts’” that develop the practice guidelines, and found that more than 87% of these ‘experts’ were financially linked to the pharmaceutical industry. The source is the medical journal article, “Relationships between authors of clinical practice guidelines and the pharmaceutical industry.” Choudry, NK, Stelfox HT, Detsky, AS, Journal of the American Medical Association, 287; 5:612-617, Feb. 6, 2002. What happens when the experts are on the payroll of the large pharmaceutical firms? As a consumer, your defense is to get the correct tests to protect yourself.

For example, ask for an RBC (red blood cell or erythrocyte magnesium and potassium) and a whole mineral panel to find out whether your body is actually absorbing minerals in the cell. A blood serum test won’t be accurate enough to find out what’s absorbed in your cells. You have to look for minerals in the cell, not in the blood serum or plasma.

Think about what the diuretics do in the long term. When you take any diuretic for high blood pressure, it raises your homeocysteine level 16% according to the medical article, “Antihypertensive treatment and homocysteine concentrations,” Westphal S, Rading A, Luley C, Dierkes J. Metabolism, 52; 3:261-3 March 2003. Homocysteine raises your blood pressure.

See the medical journal article, “Homocysteine: an aetiological contributor to peripheral vascular arterial disease," ANZ Journal of  Surgery, 72; 9:669-71, 2002. Kuan, YM, Dear, EA, Grigg, MJ, The abstract notes, “Effective lowering of elevated homocysteine levels is possible with folate, vitamin B6 and B12 supplementation and may reduce the incidence and sequelae of atherosclerotic peripheral arterial disease.”

You don't want your homocysteine levels raised. The article's abstract notes that “There is increasing evidence that, in addition to coronary disease, hyperhomocysteinaemia is also associated with an increased risk of developing peripheral arterial disease. Causes of elevated homocysteine levels include inherited enzyme deficiencies and acquired vitamin deficiencies. Detection of hyperhomocysteinaemia is particularly relevant in patients with early onset atherosclerosis.”

High levels may also contribute to systolic hypertension by causing the arteries to lose elasticity and become stiff. Excessive levels occur with deficiencies of vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid (also called folate). Homocysteine appears to be toxic to the cells lining arteries and to contribute to blood clotting.

So basically, the point is that diuretics increase your homocysteine levels. So does niacin, but vitamins B6, folate, and B12 balance the niacin so that your homocysteine levels don’t rise when you take niacin. However, when you take diruetics, your homeocysteine levels rise from the drug.

So then you’re prescribed beta blockers to lower the blood pressure and homocysteine levels. But half the people on beta blockers drop out due to feeling dizzy and depressed.

Then you might be switched to calcium channel blockers, although they are being prescribed less due to one or more of the side effects: shrinkage of the brain within five years, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. See more information on this subject on page 11 of The High Blood Pressure Hoax in the section that reads, "Calcium Channel Blockers Shrink the Brain."

What can you do about type 2 diabetes developing in people taking high blood pressure pills who are predisposed to diabetes, but don't have it before they take those pills? Certain studies show that people that take diuretics, beta blockers and other classes of drugs for high blood pressure get higher rates of diabetes. See the medical study, “Do antihypertensive drugs precipitate diabetes in predisposed men?" British Medical Journal, 298:1147-1152, April 29, 1989.

The conclusion stated, “A severalfold difference in the incidence of diabetes between treated hypertensive and non-treated, normotensive men may be a consequence of the treatment, which may be particularly deleterious in men predisposed to diabetes.” The conclusion doesn't mention the effects on women. Who's studying effects of drugs on women?

The solution to this problem is to find the cause of essential hypertension in you, the individual. Is it nutritional? Genetic? Environmental? Heavy metal toxicity? Adrenal problems? Kidney gene variants? And then work with your health care professionals to create a regimen where you can take the right approach that works best for you, such as a change in nutrition, lifestyle, slow breathing machines, exercise, or whatever it takes to restore your health without damaging it in the long run.

Find out the role your kidneys and other organs play in your chronic situation and research what the ways to correct the problem might be. Then look to other causes, such as your adrenals, and any other part of your body that increases your risks. Is your problem caused by heavy metals such as cadmium stored in your kidneys, or a gene variant?

What other causes are there? And how come so many people in the USA get high blood pressure as they age, whereas people living in other countries, especially in isolated areas of the world don't see such a deep rise in blood pressure as they age? Is it air pollution? Traffic? A common gene variant where you only need one copy of that gene to increase your risk?

Is there an environmental cause or different stressors? Is it our fast-food diets? Keep looking for multiple causes. The answers may show up with the right tests. Look at what's being absorbed into your cells (RBC tests) or missing from them rather than only search the blood serum tests. The answers lie in the clues.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is associated with cardiovascular diseases. So far no drugs have been discovered that permanently get rid of CMV once it's in the body.

It's there for a lifetime. Yet research suggests that monolaurin offers some degree of immune support for the cytomegalovirus, according to the article and description of studies on using monolaurin to destroy viruses at:  Monolaurin – A Natural Immune Boosting Powerhouse, Friday, October 31, 2008 - by: Byron J. Richards, CCN.

Now Harvard scientists announced on May 14th 2009 that they recently found in mice (but not yet in humans) a common virus that played a role in high blood pressure. And people have been treating viruses with oregano oil, too for decades.

There's a race on to see what really works. For years integrated, complementary, and alternative medicine have emphasized that common virus infections, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) also  found in herpes and cold viruses, affect other factors that lead to calcified arteries, heart disease and obesity in humans and animals.

CMV might be at least temporarily deactivated with either monolaurin from coconut oil or a few drops of oregano oil from organic wild oregano. But who's looking?

Will further testing undoubtedly lead to more drugs to suppress virus outbreaks rather than research with medicinal plants? Just follow the money and read the progress of the research. See the article published May 15th 2009 titled, “Cytomegalovirus Infection Causes an Increase of Arterial Blood Pressure” published in PloS Pathogens, a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the Public Library of Science.

The CMV viruses are persistent infections that remain in the body without symptoms until the immune system goes down as people age, have impaired immune systems, or receive organ transplants. More than half of U.S. adults already have CMV, acquired in youth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. See the May 14th 2009 Newsday article,  “Mouse study suggests common virus might play role in high blood pressure,” by Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer.

According to the abstract of the study "Cytomegalovirus Infection Causes an Increase of Arterial Blood Pressure” published in PloS Pathogens, “Expression of viral genes and viral persistent infection of blood vessel endothelial cells resulting in an increased expression of inflammatory cytokines, including renin and Ang II, may underpin the molecular mechanism by which CMV infection induces an increase in blood pressure.”

In the study, healthy mice were divided into two groups. One group was fed a normal diet and the other group a high-cholesterol diet for four weeks. When scientists injected CMV into half of each group and then after several weeks took the blood pressure of the mice, the blood pressure rose only for the CMV-infected mice.

The rodents that weren’t infected with CMV didn’t get high blood pressure. The blood pressure rose the highest in the mice fed a high-cholesterol rodent diet. Some quickly developed artery plaques, according to the journal PLos Pathogens, published by the Public Library of Science.

Researchers even found the virus quickly infected the lining of the rodents’ blood vessels. If the same results show up in humans with the same CMV as the mice had, doctors would then have a better understanding of how heart disease is related to low-level inflammation of the arteries.

The infected mice had three different inflammatory molecules develop in their carotid arteries. When the researchers put some human cells into their lab dishes, the realized that the same CMV increased the production of renin.

The main culprit in a common type of high blood pressure that may not respond well to the ‘water pills’ might be when renin production is increased so much that the renin activats a molecular pathway leading to high blood pressure. The solution usually is to find a way to decrease the renin.

Another approach might be to suppress the CMV inflammation. The virus stays with humans throughout their life. But is there a way to keep the virus from inflaming the inside of human arteries?

The problem with high blood pressure is that it’s so common. It’s believed to be caused by a gene variant that regulates how well the kidneys retain or resist salt. Often it’s passed from one family member to the next. But is it the gene passed on from parent to child or the virus?

With one in three adults in the USA having high blood pressure, controlling it is big business. If viruses are responsible for causing heart disease and the risk factors for it, such as high blood pressure, is there a way to keep the virus quiet or crack open the shell of the virus with a simple plant extract?

Viruses such as facial herpes stay in a person's body for a lifetime, mostly latent. When the immune system goes down, the virus awakens, and the person suffers an outbreak. Other viruses in the CMV group don't have outbreaks. They stay quiet and do their damage by causing inflammation inside arteries and blood vessels.

Inflammation may play a role in hypertension as much as genetic factors, but tests on humans are in the future. Scientists already have found that a cold virus called adenovirus is linked to obesity.

Another virus also has been linked to calcification of arteries. Antibiotics won’t help much if the culprit is a virus.

Scientists already know that antiobiotics don’t revent heart attacks. But what if high blood pressure and heart disease isn’t caused by bacteria, but by a virus?

Does the virus switch on the epigenetic tags on genes that create the risk factors? No one knows. The study is a start. But tests with humans won’t be forthcoming right away.

So what can you do to put a lid on sleeping viruses already in your system such as facial, mouth, back and chest herpes (simplex)? What can you do to stop other CMV viruses from silently inflaming the inside of your blood vessels and hardening your arteries with calcified fats?

Is there a 'natural' plant-based way to at least keep a Cytomegalovirus (CMV) quiet and not inflaming your arteries? That’s when monolaurin comes to mind and oregano oil.

Since it will take years before human tests are done on the Cytomegalovirus (CMV), think about monolaurin, derived from anti-virual coconut oil. And oregano oil. Since big business is sometimes about inventing a costly, synthetic drug that will most likely be used to control CMV, is anyone thinking of the alternatives, perhaps testing monolaurin and oregano oil or other oil and plant extracts on Cytomegalovirus (CMV)? 

On pages 81, 82, and 87 of the book, The High Blood Pressure Hoax, by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. (2005) I read several interesting sections on how monolaurin has been "able to dissolve the protective mebrane from 14 types of human viruses." One of those 14 viruses mentioned in the physician's book is the flu virus. Another source on swine flu breaking news is the Scence Insider blog on science agencies reporting the latest news on swine flu that's not in the usual mass media.

Monolaurin is called a virustatic agent. What virustatic agents do is "directly block the replication of viruses." The good thing is that monolaurin doesn't let you develop any type of drug resistance.

Looking for research with foods? People now have a choice of whether to turn to conventional medicine and take (if prescribed) their renin-lowering drugs or eat a fermented soybean product called 'natto,' which also is being researched to lower high blood pressure.

In the meantime, check out natto and fermented soy products research and see whether it applies to your high renin levels, if you have too  high renin levels. You want to see whether there is a food solution first. Are you deficient in magnesium? 

What if your blood pressure problem is caused by a mineral imbalance? If you don't like the aroma of natto, mix it with yogurt or pour a teaspoon of vinegar over it to absorb the ammonia-like odor of fermented soy. The vinegar will take away any odor of the food. Are there health benefits to eating specific fermented soy products?

You don't know until you start looking under every stone to find the answer to what caused your problem. Can fermented soy products such as natto have any health benefits to people with actual genetic variations that are behind their health issues? What does the sometimes changing scientific research say?

If it's a genetic problem inherited from your family, find out what happens in your body as a result of the gene variation. Is it your kidneys not removing salt properly or some other issue? Will a certain set of minerals help? Are you deficient in any minerals or types of foods?  Ask your doctor whether CO-Q10 and nattokinase or natto in its food form will be of help. Or find a qualified medical doctor who knows about research with fermented natto and the more absorbable version of CO-Q 10, uses of magnesium, and what other minerals you need.

Look to food first for your research and see who else is studying a food item that may help. Also see the books by Stephen Sinatra, M.D. titled, The Sinatra Solution: Metabolic Cardiology,  and Lower Your Blood Pressure in 8 Weeks. Also read the article online in a PDF file, Metabolic Cardiology, by Dr. Sinatra.

You never know where the answer lies until you look for it. In the meantime, do your research.  Check out another article on foods that are renin inhibitors. Look at the Handbook of fermented functional foods.

Read the article, from Science News Dec 6, 2007. Interestingly, mice stay lean on any diet when they don't have renin. The article's titled,  Mice Lacking Enzyme Renin Stay Lean On High-fat Diet, With Little Exercise. It gives you a clue that food that inhibits too much renin might reduce abdominal fat in apple-shaped people with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. But the study was done just with mice.

What it does show is  a connection. The study shows the connection between an enzyme involved in blood pressure control and symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Researchers also report in the December 2007 issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press, that mice lacking the enzyme known as renin are lean and resistant to gaining weight on a high-fat diet, even though they continue to eat just as much and don't exercise more.

The answer you want is to find the mechanism of how your own body is working because if you have an overactive renin-angiotensin system, it's important to know that it has been associated with obesity and the metabolic syndrome as well as high blood pressure. Keep researching because maybe you are what you already ate. Your first step after finding out what your body really needs is to research natto, if that is what you actually need. In biology labs, when you want to raise the blood pressure in rats, you feed the rats sugar.

People also could take their CO-Q10 in the more absorbable forms, their fish oils, and if healthy enough, use their slow breathing machines such as Resperate® or their Breatheasy™ CDs. But how does a traditional Japanese fermented soybean product called 'natto' lower high blood pressure?

My first source for research started with the 2007 hardcover book, Reverse Heart Disease Now, by Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., James C. Roberts, M.D., with Martin Zucker. On page 133, under "Our Recommendations" the authors note, "For both prevention and as part of a therapeutic program, we suggest eating natto two or three times a week. You can find it at Japanese grocers or health food stores."

Some vitamin K2 supplements are in the MK-7 form and contain some natto. But don't take vitamin K-2 in supplements if you take Coumadin (Warfarin) or similar blood thinners (anticoagulants). A vitamin K supplement will neutralize Coumadin.

What's the story on the benefits of natto? There has been a lot of research on natto and nattokinase on blood pressure.According to the Jeffrey Dach MD, TrueMed MD site, "In 1980, while studying physiological chemistry at the University of Chicago Medical School, Japanese researcher Hiroyuki Sumi accidentally discovered that a traditional Japanese soy cheese which had been consumed for centuries, called "natto", had the ability to dissolve clots. His research group published a paper on the discovery in 1987."

In Japan, natto is eaten to lower blood pressure and for cardiovascular support. You can look over the confirmed research by several clinical trials in 1995, that studied the effects of nattokinase on blood pressure in both animal and human subjects at Miyazaki Medical College and Kurashiki University in Japan .

What natto does is inhibit the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE). When the ACE is inhibited, it has a lowering effect on blood pressure. According to the Jeffrey Dach MD, TrueMed MD site, in a human study, "nattokinase ingestion was associated with a 10 percent drop in blood pressure."

So if natto is doing what ACE inhibiting drugs are doing, why prescribe drugs? In Japan, a lot of people eat natto. According to the article at the Jeffrey Dach MD, TrueMed MD site, natto "is a nutritional supplement which is considered safe, However, people with bleeding disorders or on blood thinners should use nattokinase only under medical supervision."

First you have to find out whether your high blood pressure is caused by high renin levels, or whether you have hypertension with low renin levels. And your doctor can test that. Healthcare researchers claim that "common hypertension" is caused by too much renin.