GC-MS Determined Distribution of Urinary Equol Producers as Affected by Age, Gender, and Repeated Ingestions of Soymilk

Status of equol excretion is likely a reflection of incidence risk of sex-hormone related diseases and deserves research attention. In this study, urine samples collected from 182 volunteers after soymilk ingestion were subjected to equol quantification using GC-MS. As categorized into male, female, and both genders and each category further classified into 6 age (year) categories, namely, < 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 50, > 51 and overall, a trend indicating that the younger age the higher equol producer ratio was observed. For the > 51 subjects, the corresponding producer ratios of males and females were 35.3% and 50.0%, respectively. Among the volunteers, 20 nonproducers were further recruited to ingest 1000 mL soymilk weekly for 16 wk and urines were analyzed bi-weekly. As resulted, 8 of 20 nonproducers were induced to become equol producers. The observed change of nonproducers to equol producers induced by repeating ingestions of soymilk is of merit from the viewpoint of healthcare.