ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Estrogen has cardiovascular protective effects while its adverse effects restrain its application in the therapy and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. To find a more effective and safer estrogen replacement becomes a hotspot in cardiovascular pharmaceutical researches. This paper summarized the current research situation on the cardiovascular protective effects of phytoestrogen, soy isoflavone.DATA SOURCES: Relative articles between January 1993 and December 2001 were searched by computer on Medline with the searching words of "isoflavones, atherosclerosis, vasodilation" in English, the language limitation of the articles. Simultaneously, articles between January 1994 and February 2002 were searched by computer on Wangfang Database and Chinese Journal Full Text Database with the searching words of "isoflavones,artherosclerosis, vasodilation(Chinese charcters)" in Chinese, the language limitation of the articles.DATA SELECTION: Literatures with experiments including study group and control group were selected from the data through preliminary screening to eliminate obvious non-randomized experimental studies. The full texts of the residual literatures were searched afterwards for the further judgment of ranincluded in the study. Exclusive criteria: repetitive experimental studies.DATA EXTRACTION: A total of 31 randomized or non-randomized experimental articles regarding the cardiovascular protective effects of soy isoflavone were collected, of which 26 experiments were in accordance with the inclusive criteria and the rest 5 articles were exclude due to repetition of same study.DATA SYNTHESIS: Twenty-six experiments including clinical experiments and animal experiments, which employed in vivo or in vitro two experimental methods after the application of soy isoflavone to observe and evaluate its cardiovascular protective effects. The above two methods had its own merits and shortcomings, of which in vitro experiment was a more common method for the observation.CONCLUSION: There is no adequate evidence that can prove the definite effects of soy isoflavone on the prevention and therapy of cardiovascular diseases in menopausal women, as well as its side effects. Researchers should do more researches on how to master the appropriate dose to make isoflavone reach effective blood concentration, and how to make the therapeutic effects become more beneficial.