Dietary soy and breast cancer risk
Soy food intake in the amount consumed by Asian populations may have protective effects against breast cancer, according to researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Their review of 8 dietary soy exposure studies revealed the following insights.
- Asians had a significant decreasing risk of breast cancer with increasing soy food intake — from not more than 5 mg isoflavones per day vs 10 mg vs at least 20 mg isoflavones per day.
- In contrast, soy intake was unrelated to breast cancer risk in 11 low-soy-consuming Western populations — 0.8 and 0.15 mg per day.
The bottom line?
This is a controversial topic, and will not be settled by this report, which is based on a review of epidemiological studies.
A more detailed review of the association between dietary soy intake and the risk of breast cancer is here.
3/30/08 10:41 JR