March 25th

When it comes to fighting against breast cancer, one secret might lay in your children's diet, and specifically how much soy they take in.Mammograms, self examinations, MRI's and biopsies are all used to try and diagnose breast cancer as early as possible. Diet, exercise andmedication have all been looked at to try and cut down on your chances of getting breast cancer. But this latest study looks at a child's diet as the latest tool in fighting this disease.In this study, researchers looked at Asian American women to see howoften they developed breast cancer and if their diets affected that. The reason they looked at this group is because historically breast cancer rates among white women in the US are four to seven times higher than women in China or Japan. But when those women come to live in the US, their breast cancer rates rise over a few generations.So these researchers wanted to find out if that rise in cancer rates was because of the change in their diet when they move here. And what they found was pretty amazing. Women that consumed the most amount of soy during childhood cut their risk of breast cancer by over fifty percent.The important point here was the timing of when they ate the soy. Having it during childhood may change the way breast tissue develops, and because of the isoflavones in the soy, the tissue may become more cancer resistant.Now although these researchers fall short of recommending changing yourdaughter's diet just yet, they do recommend more studies to pinpoint just how much and when soy can have its greatest effect on breast cancer.