Dark soya sauce, good for you

-Lo Tien Yin

NEXT TIME you tuck into a bowl of claypot rice, it’s all right to ask for an additional dash of dark soya sauce. It is in fact, healthy to do so. Researchers from NUS Department of Biochemistry has found from a recent study funded by A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council, that dark soya sauce, when tested in the laboratory, was about 150 times more potent than vitamin C as an antioxidant – and six to 12 times better than red wine. It also increases your blood flow which means that the sauce has potential to ward off a stroke.

BETTER THAN RED WINE: Professor Barry Halliwell says that their study has shown that dark soya sauce possesses anti-oxidants which are six to 12 times more potent than red wine.

The effect of dark soya sauce is also tested on 24 healthy volunteers with an average age of 23. The volunteers were given either a bowl of rice mixed with six teaspoonfuls of dark soya sauce or rice mixed with food colouring and salt, after fasting for at least six hours. Samples of their blood and urine were tested at intervals for levels of free radical damage – measured by a type of fat produced when free radicals attack fats.

Volunteers who ate rice with dark soya sauce had free radical damage cut by 15 per cent over six hours after eating it, compared to those who ate rice with food colouring only. Between three and four hours after the meal, when the antioxidant effect reached its peak, damage was cut by 20 per cent. Those who ate rice with dark soya sauce also experienced increase in blood flow by 10 per cent over six hours. Between three and four hours after consumption, blood flow increased by as much as 50 per cent.

The findings were published in the international journal, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. Said Professor Barry Halliwell, Deputy President (Research and Technology) and Head, Department of Biochemistry: “We are impressed that dark soya sauce slows down free radical damage in young healthy people. There’s a preventive aspect, showing that it may potentially slow down the rate of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases.”

Next, the researchers are isolating the exact compounds in the sauce that are responsible for the antioxidant effect. Researchers would also need to ascertain whether long-term consumption of dark soya sauce will prolong its oxidising effect in the body, said Professor Halliwell.

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