Cancer Prevention

Cancer is a scary disease, there’s no question about that. There are a lot of ways that your diet affects your risk of developing cancer. Soy offers more than a glimmer of hope for relenting many types of cancer, especially the hormone related cancers (breast, uterine, and prostate). Breast cancer is reaching epidemic proportions in some parts of the world. Yet in many Asian countries breast cancer is much less common. Soy is likely to be one of the favors keeping breast cancer rates low.

What exactly is cancer?

Cancer is actually a group of diseases characterized by the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells. Normal, healthy cells are damaged and even destroyed when these abnormal cells invade surrounding tissues. Sometimes cancer cells travel through the blood and lymph fluids to other parts of the body, where they initiate new cancers.

This ability to form secondary cancers is called metastasis.

There are two principal cancer stages: an initiation stage where the normal, healthy cell or its genetic code is altered and a promotion stage where the abnormal cell is encouraged to multiply. Both stages are necessary for cancer to develop. The initiation stage, caused by a mutagen (a substance that causes a cell to mutate) or carcinogen (a Cancer causing substance), happens quickly and frequently.

The promotion stage, when a substance called a promoter is in contact with the abnormal cell, is more lengthy, allowing the slow growth of cancer to go undeleted for decades. Cancer will not develop unless the cell exposed to a mutagen or carcinogen is subsequently in contact with something that will promote its growth.

What’s the relationship between cancer and the diet?

Far from being a random disease, cancer (either its prevention or promotion) is intimately linked to non genetic factors. In fact, diet, lifestyle, and the environment contribute to about three quarters of all cancer cases.

Many substances in food instigate or encourage cancer. For example, food additives called nitrites, found in processed meats, such as bacon and bologna, are converted in the body into nitrosamines, which are potent carcinogens. Other dietary mutagens include aflatoxin (a mold that forms on peanuts), heavy metals such as lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and pesticides such as malathione and DDT. Alcohol does not initiate cancer, but it promotes the growth of existing abnormal cells. Examples of other suspected dietary promoters are saccharin, excess dietary fat, and excessive use of coffee or caffeine.

On the other hand, the diet also contains many anti cancer substances. A diet low in fat but high in fiber, vitamin A, beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and other nutrients inhibits the initiation and promotion of cancer. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that soy falls into this category of anti cancer foods.

How was soy’s cancer connection uncovered?

Cancer researchers first became interested in soybeans when startling differences between cancer rates in Japan (and other Asian countries) and the United States were noted. In fact, rates of the hormone-dependent cancers (breast, ovary, endometrium and prostate) can be as much as twenty limes higher in the United States. And when Asian individuals immigrate to the United States, their cancer rates soon rise. This indicates that the initially low cancer rates were due to environmental (rather than genetic) factors. Soy is a leading contender for being the environmental factor that contributes to the low cancer rates in Asian countries.