15 January 2013
Much has been written regarding the role of soy and breast cancer, but much confusion remains. While research in this area is active, here is what we know:
Soy is an isoflavone, a class of chemical that has weak estrogen-like activity. We know that women in Asian countries, following a traditional diet, have a lower incidence of breast cancer than women in the US. Their diet consists of large quantities of soy foods starting at a young age. However they eat soy in a natural form – they do not eat “foods” such as soy hot dogs or take soy in supplement form. Research has shown that consuming large quantities of natural soy products starting at a young age seems to confer some estrogen resistance to the breast tissue, which may account for the lower incidence of breast cancer in the Asian population.
