The effect of soy milk as an adjunct in reducing blood pressure among adult hypertensive FM-OPD patients at Quezon City General Hospital

ABSTRACT

Background@#Hypertension is the most common condition seen in primary care. Despite various researches and evolving medical arts, it is still considered as the biggest single risk factor for deaths worldwide.@*Objective@#To determine whether non-pharmacologic management such as intake of soy milk will be effective as an adjunct in reducing elevated blood pressure among adult patients at the Quezon City General Hospital – Out Patient Department.@*Methodology@#Forty hypertensive patients consulting at the Family Medicine – Out Patient Department for elevated blood pressure satisfying the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study.@*Design@#Open-label, randomized controlled crossover trial@*Data Collection@#The subjects were grouped to non-soy milk and soy milk. Parameters such as blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate were recorded daily then summarized after second and fourth week. A wash out period for 1 week was observed for the soy milk group then a crossover of the arm was done for four weeks.@*Results@#There were no significant differences in reducing Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) and Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP) observed both at Phase I and Phase II in non-soy milk and soy milk group. Significant reduction in the Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Heart Rate (HR) were observed at Phase II of soy milk group with p-value of 0.018 at week 2 and 0.002 at week 4 respectively.@*Conclusion@#This study has shown that patients may benefit from using soymilk as an adjunct to hypertensive medication in lowering blood pressure and heart rate.