Beans, Protease Inhibitors and Breast Cancer:

[Guest guest]

Beans, Protease Inhibitors and Breast Cancer:

 

Eating lots of beans may help protect you from breast cancer, possibly because

they contain so-called phytoestrogens that help block the activity of

cancer-promoting estrogen.

 

Hispanic women in the Caribbean and Mexico are known to have less breast cancer

than American women. One reason could be that Hispanic women eat twice as many

beans-mainly pinto, garbanzo and black beans-as American women.

 

Hispanic women average three-fourths of a cup of beans six days a week. That's

compared with beans three times a week for African-American women and twice a

week for white American women.

 

Beans also possess several anticancer compounds, including protease inhibitors

and phytates.

 

Soybeans contain compounds that can manipulate estrogen as well as directly

inhibit the growth of cancerous cells, theoretically reducing the risk of breast

cancer in women of all ages.

 

One soybean compound, in fact, is quite similar chemically to the drug

tamoxifen, given to certain women to help prevent breast cancer and its spread.

 

Animal studies have shown that the soybean's phytoestrogens counteract

cancer-promoting estrogen much the same way tamoxifen does.

 

Researchers believe that soybean's most active anticancer agent is genistein.

This was found to prevent breast tumors in animals.

 

Human studies are in progress.

 

Soybeans seem to protect Asian women against breast cancer. A recent study found

that premenopausal women in Singapore who ate twice as much soy protein as most

people had only half the risk of breast cancer.

 

Soybeans are regarded as the likely primary reason Japanese women have less

breast cancer. Researchers found that those who ate the most soybean foods had

the highest urine concentrations of isoflavonoids, which are anti- cancer

agents, particularly against. breast cancer and prostate cancer.

 

Typically the women ate three ounces of soybean products a day, including tofu

(soybean curd), miso (soybean paste), fermented soybeans and boiled soybeans.

Eating miso has also decreased both the occurrence and growth of breast tumors

in animals.

 

This jibes with the observation that postmenopausal breast cancers grow more

slowly in Japanese women than in Caucasian women.

 

Soy and Stomach Cancer:

Soybeans may help. fight off stomach cancer. Japanese scientists found that men

and women who ate a bowl of rniso soup a day were only one- third as apt to

develop stomach cancer as those who never ate it. Even eating it occasionally

cut the odds of stomach cancer by 17 percent in men and 19 percent in women.

 

NOTE: Only soybean protein appears protective. That includes soybeans, textured

soy protein, soy milk, tofu, miso and tempeh, but not soy sauce or soybean oil.

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjoguest

DietaryTipsForHBP

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes

 

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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