Can soy help for prostate cancer prevention?
There have been numerous scientific studies performed testing the hypothesis that soy foods, or the soy isoflavones found in foods made from soy, can play a role in prostate cancer prevention. While doing an overview of these studies it is clear that the answer is yes, eating soy food is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer in men. This may not come as a surprise to people who know the statistic that men in America are almost five times as likely to die from prostate cancer than men in Japan, a country whose base diet contains a lot of soy foods. One study tested the role of genistein – an isoflavone or special nutrient found mainly in soybeans and foods made from soybeans – in slowing the growth of prostate cells. The researchers concluded that genistein slowed the cell proliferation in the prostate cells of men with prostate cancer. Another study demonstrated that men who drank one glass of soymilk per day reduced their risk of developing prostate cancer by 70%. Tens of th
