Soy and Cancer - Part 1

Approximately one out of every four American dies of cancer, and approximately one out of every three people will develop cancer in his or her lifetime.

While many factors are involved, diet is linked to as many as one-third of all cancer deaths in the United States. Statistics like this are shocking, and because so many foods are now being labeled as carcinogenic, cancer prevention is becoming even more discouraging. Finally, researchers are informing us about a food we can and should eat, a food that helps prevent cancer rather than cause it. Soy research is cancer news to smile about.

Soy and Cancer Research:

A Unique Field of Study

The potential fole of soy in cancer prevention, and possibly even treatment, is highly encouraging, and conclusions linking soy and cancer may in time proven more important that the soy cholesterol connection. Currently, cancer is more difficult to study than heart disease because researchers lack a reliable biomarker. For example, when researchers want to trace the risks of heart disease, they can measure blood-cholesterol levels, a concrete indicator. Cancer research lacks this advantage, but the results of recent studies on the effects of soy in cancer patients are too significant to ignore. For starters, in 1990 the National Cancer Institute identified five different, anticarcinogenic phytochemicals in soybeans: phytosterols, and isoflavones. Since that time, the majority of soy study has focused on isoflavones, the group that exhibits the most amazing anticancer effect, and more specifically genistein, a type of isoflavone unique to soy.