Soy and Breast Cancer

The combination of news-bites with hearsay makes for a fabulous game of 'chinese whispers', and in my opinion, this is exactly why the population is afflicted with a love-hate relationship with soy.

To try and help set the record straight with regards to breast cancer, I am referencing my August '09 issue of 'Environmental Nutrition'. This clearly states that amongst the ever-expanding research on this topic, there is no evidence that traditional soy foods increase the chances of women at high risk for developing breast cancer or worsen the prognosis of existing breast cancer patients. To the contrary, evidence shows that 2 servings daily of soyfoods can actually help breast cancer patients (if you are a breast-cancer patient and have some questions, please do contact me and I can help you further....).

I stress the word 'traditional' when talking about soy foods because it's the WHOLE soy foods, such as those in the Asian diet, that seem to have the beneficial effects. These are soybeans, tofu, miso, tempeh and soymilk, and NOT the typical form of soy ingested by Westeners; isolated components of soy in the form of fillers and extenders in foods like protein bars, shakes, veggie burgers, soy sausages and meat-substitutes.

So that's the good news, sadly, the research also shows that in order to reduce our risk of breast cancer, we really need to eat soyfood consistently during adolesence and young adulthood....so take note, those of you out there who have young daughters....and remember, not all soy is equal, and I recommend finding non-GMO (genetically modified) whole-food sources.