Apples for Health- Eating soy as children cuts breast cancer

Eating soy as children cuts breast cancer

BETHESDA, Md., March 25 (UPI) -- Asian-American women who ate higher amounts of soy during childhood had a 58 percent reduced risk of breast cancer, U.S. researchers said.

"Historically, breast cancer incidence rates have been four to seven times higher among white women in the United States than in women in China or Japan," Regina Ziegler, a senior investigator in the National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, said in a statement.

"However, when Asian women migrate to the United States, their breast cancer risk rises over several generations and reaches that of U.S. white women, suggesting that modifiable factors, rather than genetics, are responsible for the international differences. These lifestyle or environmental factors remain elusive; our study was designed to identify them."

The current study focused on women of Chinese, Japanese or Filipino descent living in San Francisco; Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles; or Hawaii.

Researchers interviewed 597 women with breast cancer and 966 healthy women. If the women had mothers living in the United States, researchers interviewed the mothers to determine the frequency of soy consumption in childhood.

High intake of soy in childhood was associated with a 58 percent reduction in breast cancer. A high level of soy intake in the adolescent and adult years was associated with a 20 to 25 percent reduction.

The study is published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.