Soy is well-known to help those who wishes to lose weight because its protein has plenty of isoflavones that. Aside from having low-calorie content, here are the popular actions caused by its isoflavone content that soy carries out to affect weight loss efforts:

1. Soy decreases the ability of the body to store fat.

2. Soy helps increase the muscle mass, which helps burn more fat than fat tissues.

Now this growing interest in soy as a food that helps people in performing well on their weight loss programs has made more researchers curious as to the real benefits of its protein. And just recently, a study acquired results that soy does not signal the body to reduce food intake but affects metabolism in stead, which causes weight loss.

Research shows that when soy consumption goes up, weight goes down. A new University of Illinois study may help scientists understand exactly how that weight loss happens.

“We wanted to compare the effects of soy protein hydrolysates and soy peptides with those of leptin because we hypothesized that soy might behave in the body in a similar way. Leptin is a hormone produced in our adipose tissue that interacts with receptors in the brain and signals us that we’re full so we stop eating,” said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I assistant professor of food science and human nutrition.

The researchers wanted to see if soy protein hydrolysates could affect these regulatory hormones and their receptors.

“And we found that soy did have an effect on these mechanisms and hormones that are induced in the body to help us degrade lipids and reduce body weight, but it did so by boosting metabolism and not by reducing food intake,” she said.

More details of this study showing another clue as to why soy promotes weight loss.