Controversy about Soy

Some doctors warn their patients not to eat soy foods because they fear that soy may increase breast cancer risk was not decreased. Afraid of them comes mainly from a study from the University of California at San Francisco published in October 1996.

In this study, women were given genistein 38 grams a day for one year. It is important to note that this woman was not given genistein as happens naturally in the whole soybean foods. Instead, they were given genistein that have been extracted and isolated from soybean meal and prepared as supplements only contain hundreds of genistein with no other nutrients in soybean.

The researchers were surprised to find that instead of having a protective effect, it seems dangerous supplement genistein. After one year at the genistein supplements, the women have raised the amount of estradiol in the blood and their breast cells showed signs of stimulation and increased growth. Unexpected results have researchers concerned. Actually, soy can increase cancer risk? Hundreds of other studies showed that women who ate the most soy had the lowest risk of breast cancer. So, how can one isolate genistein have the opposite effect?

The women in the controversial study did not eat the whole soybean foods fresh. They were isolated from genistein-something that does not naturally occur in nature. When you isolate the substance of the whole, often isolating behave differently. Your body is designed to eat, digest, and metabolize the fresh whole foods, which contain hundreds, even thousands, of substances all interact with one another. The interaction can be important. One can balance the effects of other substances, making them more or less effective, take the poison effect, increasing the absorption, or change the way your body to use it in several important ways.

Research shows that when genistein is consumed as part of a whole soy foods, is absorbed very differently from the way it is in the form of additional insulation. All of the genistein in soy is activated by intestinal bacteria during digestion, whereas genistein is taken as a supplement to be absorbed before reaching the isolated bacteria in the gut. This may be part of the reason that genistein supplements seem to have different effects from the whole soy foods. So, until research shows otherwise, stay away from all supplement genistein and soy foods.