Health Care Article

Soya bean, a perennial Asian staple, reduces the risk of breast cancer among Chinese women, a published study said on Tuesday. Conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS), the
University of Southern California and the University of Minnesota, the study tracked more than 34,000 Chinese women in Singapore aged 45 to 74 for a decade.

Women who consumed Soya proteins in amounts more than in a serving of soya bean curd or a glass
of soya bean milk were 18% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who ate less, said the findings in The Straits Times. Eating a serving of soya bean curd or drinking a glass of the milk
every day reduces the risk, the study said.

“Our study shows that the amount of soya needed is not high, and is easily achievable in a typical
Asian diet,” NUH associate professor Koh Woon Puay was quoted as saying. Post-menopausal women, those with a higher body mass index and those who had consumed soya for longer, experienced the greatest reductions in risk, the study found. The results are similar to those of eight other studies conducted on Asians. One in Japan showed an average 12% reduction in breast cancer risk for those who eat the soya bean.

Studies on Caucasian women have been inconclusive, possibly because of the low levels of soya involved, the report said. Koh cautioned against consuming too much soya, which could
lead to conditions such as gout. NUS’ Centre for Molecular Epidemiology is planning a 10-year study
of 12,000 Chinese, Malay and Indian women, with and without breast cancer, to fi nd out how genetic and lifestyle factors interact to determine breast cancer risks.

A compound found in dehydrated tomatoes may help quash prostate cancer tumours, new animal research suggests. Past studies have come to conflicting conclusions as to whether tomatoes or lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomatoes, might offer prostate cancer protection, with one recent study finding no correlation between men’s blood levels of lycopene and their risk of prostate cancer.

However, the new findings, reported in the journal Cancer Research, suggest that the processing of the tomato may be a key factor. Researchers found that a form of carbohydrate called FruHis, found
in dehydrated tomatoes, appeared to protect rats from developing prostate tumours. The greatest protection came from dehydrated tomatoes that had been rehydrated into tomato paste and supplemented with additional FruHis. (more…)

A new study by German researchers has found conclusive evidence that vitamin D really does reduce the risk of breast cancer in women, confirming anecdotal evidence. The just-released findings of a long-term study involving 1,394 breast cancer patients and an equal number of healthy women after menopause were surprisingly clear.

Women with a very low blood level of vitamin D have a considerably increased breast cancer risk. The effect was found to be strongest in women who were not taking hormones for relief of menopausal symptoms.

A connection between vitamin D level and the risk of developing breast cancer has been implicated for a long time, but its clinical relevance had not yet been proven. (more…)

Scientist in the US are developing a screening test for breast cancer that checks a woman’s saliva for evidence of the disease to help find tumors early, when they are most treatable.

In research published recently, the scientists said they identified 49 proteins in saliva that the screening test would track to distinguish healthy women from those with benign breast tumors and those with malignant breast tumors. (more…)