Soy Beneficial for Breast Cancer Survivors: Study
Surprising finding shows it reduces risk of death, recurrence
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Dec. 8 (HealthDay News) — Regular, moderate consumption of soy foods can help lower the risk of death and cancer recurrence in women who’ve had breast cancer, new research shows.
What’s more, the association between soy and a reduced risk of death held true even for women with estrogen receptor-positive cancers and women taking tamoxifen, according to the study published in the Dec. 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We found that women with a history of breast cancer who consumed moderate amounts of soy food were doing better in terms of prognosis. They had reduced mortality and reduced recurrence,” said study author Dr. Xiao Ou Shu, a professor of medicine and a cancer epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
There has been some concern that soy might increase the risk of breast cancer or worsen the prognosis for women already diagnosed with the disease because soy is what’s known as a phytoestrogen. That means that it can act like a weak form of estrogen in the body.
However, it appears those concerns may have been unfounded because Shu and her colleagues found that soy actually reduces the availability of naturally occurring estrogen by binding to its receptors.
“In our study, we found that soy food has a very similar effect to tamoxifen,” said Shu. Tamoxifen is a drug that blocks the action of estrogen in the body, which can be helpful for treating cancers that are fueled by estrogen. Read more…
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