Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Nephrol. May 6, 2016; 5(3): 233-257
Published online May 6, 2016. doi: 10.5527/wjn.v5.i3.233
Soy-based renoprotection
Nancy J McGraw, Elaine S Krul, Elizabeth Grunz-Borgmann, Alan R Parrish
Nancy J McGraw, Elaine S Krul, Global Nutrition, DuPont Nutrition and Health, Saint Louis, MO 63101, United States
Elizabeth Grunz-Borgmann, Alan R Parrish, Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65212, United States
Author contributions: McGraw NJ, Krul ES and Parrish AR wrote the paper; McGraw NJ and Krul ES prepared the tables; all authors revised the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflicts of interests for this article. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of their respective affiliations, DuPont, National Institutes of Health or the MSMC.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Alan R Parrish, PhD, Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Missouri, MA 415 Medical Sciences Building, One Hospital Drive, Columbia, MO 65212, United States. parrishar@health.missouri.edu
Telephone: +1-573-8844391 Fax: +1-573-8844276
Received: October 27, 2015
Peer-review started: November 3, 2015
First decision: December 4, 2015
Revised: January 16, 2016
Accepted: March 9, 2016
Article in press: March 14, 2016
Published online: May 6, 2016
Processing time: 180 Days and 22.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This review summarizes the data, both animal and limited human studies, that support the hypothesis that a soy-enriched diet is protective against chronic kidney disease. While the clinical studies have small subject numbers, the data suggest that soy improves renal function, or attenuates the progression of chronic renal dysfunction. The potential mechanisms of action, from both experimental and clinical studies, is also discussed, including positive effects on lipid and blood glucose profiles, improved vascular function and reduced inflammation. Consideration is also given to the potential active ingredients within soy, including both protein and isoflavones, that may mediate the renoprotective effect of the botanical.