Soy Foods Safe for Breast Cancer Survivors by Pamela A. Popper, Ph.D., N.D.
The anti-soy crowd is a noisy and busy group that continues to perpetuate the myth that eating soy foods is harmful for health, particularly for women who have had breast cancer. Doctors help to keep this myth alive by telling breast cancer patients to avoid soy.
The evidence continues to show that this stance is incorrect. In a presentation made at the American Association for Cancer Research Meeting 2011, Dr. Xiao Ou Shu, MD, PhD, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported that women with the highest intake of soy had a 9% reduced risk of mortality and a 15% reduced risk of recurrence of breast cancer than those who had the lowest intakes. The study included over 16,000 women, and while the results were statistically insignificant, the women consuming soy were slightly better off, leading Shu to state that concerns about detrimental effects of soy consumption are not observed in the populations studied.
“Our results indicate it may be beneficial for women to include soy food as part of a healthy diet, even if they have had breast cancer,” said Dr Shu. “This can’t be directly generalized to soy supplements, however, as supplements may differ from soy foods in both the type and amount of isoflavones.”
My purpose in reporting this information is not to promote soy consumption, but rather to highlight how misleading information on the internet can be, and how important it is to consider research when making decisions about diet and health. If you like soy foods, eat them. If you do not, there are so many wonderful plant foods to choose from that you certainly won’t miss them. But there is no reason to restrict them because of health concerns.