Soy Supplements Increase Breast Cancer
This study puts another nail in the soy supplement coffin as an effective way to lower the risk of breast cancer. Highly purified soy foods and supplements marketed in the US may stimulate the growth of pre-existing estrogen-dependent breast tumors according to Professor William Helferich. " In Asia, soy foods are made from minimally processed soybeans or defatted, toasted soy flour, which is quite different from soy products consumed in the US. Isoflavone-containing products in the US have lost many of the biologically active components in soy, and those partially purified products,(which contain concentrated genistein) sold as supplements, caused tumor growth in our study."
What's the moral here? Don't tamper with Mother Nature! When the mice were fed soy flour with MIXED isoflavone content (which is more like the Asian diet) there was no increase in tumor growth. It's all in the processing and isolation to make a more expensive product. So use soy flour and leave the supplements alone.
But if that wasn't enough, look what happens when you take soy supplements and tamoxifen, the drug used to treat breast cancer. Dr. Helferich went on to look at this same isoflavone, Genistein, and found it enhanced the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer, the most common type found in women over 50. But the scary news was discovering isoflavone supplements prevented tamoxifen from stopping tumor growth. Blood concentrations of genistein were similar to levels found in people taking isoflavone supplements. "Self-medicating with soy supplements to prevent menopausal symptoms while undergoing chemotherapy interefered with tamoxifen's benefits."
I'll take this one step further. The mass marketing of refined soy products to women as a "natural, safe" alternative to estrogen therapy will result in an ever increasing rate of breast cancer if women don't reign in their fear of "hormones" and understand that "natural" means 17-beta estradiol.
You can find the medical articles in my free newsletter Larrian Reports
Categories: soy, isoflavones, estrogen, synthetic, bioidentical, natural, supplements, breast, cancer, estradiol
What's the moral here? Don't tamper with Mother Nature! When the mice were fed soy flour with MIXED isoflavone content (which is more like the Asian diet) there was no increase in tumor growth. It's all in the processing and isolation to make a more expensive product. So use soy flour and leave the supplements alone.
But if that wasn't enough, look what happens when you take soy supplements and tamoxifen, the drug used to treat breast cancer. Dr. Helferich went on to look at this same isoflavone, Genistein, and found it enhanced the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer, the most common type found in women over 50. But the scary news was discovering isoflavone supplements prevented tamoxifen from stopping tumor growth. Blood concentrations of genistein were similar to levels found in people taking isoflavone supplements. "Self-medicating with soy supplements to prevent menopausal symptoms while undergoing chemotherapy interefered with tamoxifen's benefits."
I'll take this one step further. The mass marketing of refined soy products to women as a "natural, safe" alternative to estrogen therapy will result in an ever increasing rate of breast cancer if women don't reign in their fear of "hormones" and understand that "natural" means 17-beta estradiol.
You can find the medical articles in my free newsletter Larrian Reports
Categories: soy, isoflavones, estrogen, synthetic, bioidentical, natural, supplements, breast, cancer, estradiol
<< Home