Men, soy and lung cancer.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

What do these three things have in common?  Well, men who are non-smokers and who eat more soy MAY have a lower risk of getting lung cancer than other men.  Okay, the non-smoking part may be an obvious one, but the soy?

Soybeans contain natural compounds called isoflavanones.  Isoflavanones mimic estrogen, a hormone which women have in spades.  In contrast, men have high levels of testosterone.  Estrogen is associated with lower levels of breast cancer and prostate cancer, which makes intuitive sense. (Yes, men do get breast cancer. Women, however, do NOT get prostate cancer).

Enter researchers in Japan at the National Cancer Center in Tokyo who studied over 36,000 Japanese men between 45 to 75 years of age who were cancer free at the outset.  The group was compared with some 40,000 Japanese women.  Over the course of 11 years.

The results? 1 in 75 men (and 1 in 225 women) were diagnosed with lung cancer within 11 years.  (Men tend to get lung cancer at higher rates than women).  Of 13,000 men who never smoked, only 22 of them who ate very little soy were diagnosed with lung cancer.  Only 13 of them who ate a lot of soy (up to 162 grams per day) contracted lung cancer.

I was sold up until this point too, however, the authors of the study were very equivocal as to whether the intake of soy itself was the cause of the lower risk or whether non-smoking males adopted other healthier behaviors, such as exercise, which could explain the lower risk.

So what should one take away from such a study?  Well, there is a suggestion that eating more isoflavanones may be good for men.  In fact increased soy intake has already been demonstrated to lower risk of prostate cancer.  It follows that increased soy intake may also be beneficial for non-smoking males who wish to avoid lung cancer as well.  Again, just a suggestion.

~Posted by D.M. Schwadron, Esquire