I have just seen a statement in a book on natural alternatives to HRT saying that a study in 1996 showed that soya beans work in the same way as Tamoxifen in blocking oestrogen. Has anyone else heard this? I am confused now because I thought eating soya could be bad for you if you have had bc.
Thanks
Maude
Gawd only knows, but I had a whole bowl of them in a sushi restaurant yesterday! Nice!
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The book should give you a reference to the study, so that you can go and read it yourself and decide if it was a creditable, clinical study. I’ve not heard of anything like this myself, and would tend to side with the argument which suggests that soya is best avoided if you are ER+ as there are no definitive answers yet regarding the role of phyto-oestrogens in association with breast cancer.
I seem to remember that the Cancer Research site had a good run down of this issue.
In short there have have been three major studies done, one pro one against and the other did not make a conclusion either way. So to be on the safe side the medics just says don’t overdose on soya.
with love from confused.com
Hi everyone
Thanks for your replies. The book I read it in was one I had pre bc diagnosis and it had been in the cupboard for a few years. I got it out to lend it to a friend and had a quick flick through it. That’s when I noticed the bit about the soya beans, I probably didn’t notice it pre diagnosis because it wasn’t relevant then. I have lent the book to my friend and as soon as I get it back I will do as you suggest and look at the credibility of the study.
In the meantime I will follow the advice - if in doubt do nowt!!
Happy New Year everyone.
Maude xx
Jane Plants book “Your Life in Your Hands” is q convincing re soya. She has survived 5BC cases and puts her survival 15 years on down to her diet rich in plant and soya and no dairy. She refused to take tamoxifen! Interesting reading.
A very good discussion on this soya issue can be found on Diane Dyer’s blog site. Diane is a registered dietician with very many years experience.Like me, she had cancer first as a baby, receiving radiotherapy treatment to the chest. As a result of this radiotherapy at a very young age, both she and I have had breast cancer as a late effect of treatment-the risk of getting breast cancer if you had radiotherapy to the chest as a child is 10-25 x greater than the average person. After Diane was diagnosed with cancer for the second time she concentrated on how she could help herself and others with her dietary knowledge-andshe writes a very very informative blog. Diane eats soya,(as do I, and I am also a highly qualified health professional) but limits the quantity.
I would very strongly recommend anyone interested in this subject read her blog.I am still taking Tamoxifen at present. I have had huge improvements personally since cutting out dairy products-what are hot flushes?There is no need to take dairy products to get adequate calcium
best wishes and good luck
daisydog
Looked back at Diane’s site, and again read recent study declared soya had positive benefits to prevent recurrence in both oestogen positive and negative breast cancer-but suggest moderate intake.
Unlike the vegetarian above, I really enjoy soya milk, and my daughters cannot get enough of it. Read another recent study which said drinking soya milk as a child and teenager had a very long protective effect against development of breast cancer-I think this is a really good product to buy our kids (no I do not have any link to a soya factory-wish I had)
daisydog
Daisydog - I stopped all dairy products on diagnosis back in Feb 09 an started on tamoxifen 2 months’ ago. I have been using a moderate amount of soya since.
I am having terrible hot flushes so I don’t think that not having them is necessarily to do with dairy or soya.
On the plus side it has made me cut out a lot of fatty foods such as milk chocolate and cheese and I’ve lot two and half stone. My husband has changed his diet with me and his cholesterol has gone down dramatically.
Elinda x
There is a very recent publication describing a Chinese study on this, to which Diana Dyer refers. It is very encouraging regarding apparent benefits of soya intake for BC patients.
(Actually, being quite correctly cautious, it states that there was a significant statistical association between higher soya intake and lower recurrence rates, as there is no evidential basis from which a causal link can be inferred.)
You can find the abstract at: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19996398.
The good thing about this study is that it is specifically designed to test exactly this question. Unfortunately, I do not have a subscription to access the full text of the study, so can’t comment on the detail.
thanks Jansman for the link. This is a strong conclusion and very interesting. Wish they could find out exactly how soya works in the body - I’m sure that will happen eventually.
Elinda x
I have been a vegetarian since I was 21 and I will be 50 next week. I have eaten soya on a regular basis for 30 years and yet I was still diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer from the start, in 2005. After my first course of chemotherapy, six months on Tamoxifen showed liver mets progression and it was back to chemo for me, which I have been on for the most part ever since. I know there have been studies which link soya with lowered breast cancer risk but it obviously is not a factor which works for everyone.
Sorry you have had such a rough time, Jennywren (what a lovely name)
If you had been on tamoxifen since age 21 nobody would guarantee you did not get breast cancer. There are multifactorial factors at work-studies have shown soya is most effective when it was consumed in childhood, which REDUCES THE RISK lifelong-but there are few things in cancer where there is a definite guarantee.
I write this as somebody who was given a terminal cancer diagnosis over 50 years ago-cancer developed as a very young baby-sometimes the environment is against you
daisydog
Hi All,
Diane and Daisydog may already have explained it but my understanding is that phytoestrogens like soy jump on the estrogen receptors in breast tissue (and elsewhwere in the body) and stop heavy-duty animal estrogens (such as our own) from getting to the receptors. I read somewhere recently that estrogen receptors were very promiscuous - they let any old form of estrogen attach. I thought this was a funny and neat way of explaining it too.
Many products such as conventional moisturisers, make-up etc have endocrine disrupting chemicals or xenoestrogens, as they are sometimes called, in them. They can jump on estrogen recpetors too apparently Mineral-based products/make-up are probably safer.
Edinburghperson
I would think soybeans help the breast estrogen hormones grow even more. It does in men.
Hi to all
Villa-eu - I’d be interested to know about any research you’ve seen on this please?
Soft plastics are one of the causes of xeno oestrogens in the food chain as I understand it. Cling film, the white linings in cans etc. I keep all that to a minimum and also use cosmetics, soaps, shampoos etc without the usual chemical loads. I don’t know if it will help but I like to feel that I’m doing all I can.
I totally agree that there are many things that work both for and against breast cancer. We’ll probably know a lot more in the future about how things interact not only with the cancer but with each other (such as chemicals).
Elinda x
ps I love the explanation of promiscuous oestrogen receptors!
Soya foods and other phyto-oestrogens
Phyto-oestrogens are chemicals found in plant foods (phyto means ‘plant’). They have a similar structure to the female sex hormone oestrogen. There are different types of phyto-oestrogens. Some are found in soya bean products (isoflavones). Others are found in the fibre of whole grains, fruit, vegetables and flax seed (lignans). Milk may also contain phyto-oestrogens, but this depends on what the cows have been eating!
The main type of phyto-oestrogens in the Western diet is lignans. Research into the effect of lignans on breast cancer risk was conflicting. So in 2009 researchers looked at all the studies that had been done. They found that in women who had had their menopause, high levels of lignin in the diet slightly reduced their breast cancer risk. It had no effect for premenopausal women though. But the researchers say that more studies are needed to confirm these results.
A joint study was reported in July 2002 by Cancer Research UK, the National Cancer Institute of the USA and the National University of Singapore. It found that women with a soya-rich diet had breast tissue which was less dense than women with low soya diets. Higher density of breast tissue has been linked to a higher risk of breast cancer. This is the first study to directly link eating soya with an effect on breast tissue. A meta-analysis, combining the results of lots of separate studies, found that Asian women who eat the highest amounts of soy foods have a lower risk of breast cancer. In other parts of the world, most women do not eat enough soy to reduce their risk of breast cancer,
Further research has since seemed to show that that women whose diets are high in soya phyto-oestrogens have a lower risk of breast cancer. But more research is needed to confirm this. In some studies, eating phyto-oestrogens (soya flour and linseed supplements) regularly over several weeks reduced oestrogen levels. One of the active ingredients in soya is isoflavone and this chemical mimics oestrogen and reduces the effect of human oestrogen in the body. High levels of human oestrogen can increase breast cancer risk
this was on the cancer help website,dont know if it helps 
est wishes Mel xx