Food as medicine wins again…against cancer.
Sure, it’s just reduced recurrence of cancer (just like the treatment of metastatic colon cancer, with the Standard American Diet (SAD) causing 3.5x recurrence vs a prudent diet). But lots of my food as medicine patients never want to see their cancer, or lost weight again.
A new Chinese breast cancer diet study in JAMA shows that soy foods dropped the risk of death by as much as 10.3% and recurrence rates by as much as 11.2% over 4 years: a little soy protein (less than 5 grams per day!) was almost as effective as a lot (over 15 grams per day).
In China, soy is “10% or more of daily protein intake…the average isoflavone intake is 47 mg/d versus 1 to 6 mg/d in the United States.”
Which foods have the most isoflavones? Whole and minimally processed ones.
“Asian populations tend to consume traditional, whole soy foods such as cooked soybeans, edamame, tofu, miso, and soy milk. In contrast, soy supplements, meat analogs made with soy, and various processed foods with isoflavones are consumed in the United States, but these foods may have lower levels of isoflavones.”
And that, in a soybean pod, is the crux of the food issue for soy in breast cancer treatment. Enjoy soy foods. Any amount. Mostly whole. (apologies to Michael Pollan).