Nonisoflavone Soybean Anticarcinogens The Evidence for Soybean Products as Cancer Preventive Agents12

ABSTRACT There is much evidence suggesting that compounds present in soybeans can prevent cancer in many different organ systems. The evidence for specific soybean-derived compounds having a suppressive ef fect on carcinogenesis in animal model systems is lim ited, however. There is evidence that the following iso lated soybean derived products suppress carcinogen esis in vivo: a protease inhibitor, the Bowman-Birk inhibitor, inositol hexaphosphate (phytic acid) and the sterol /3-sitosterol. Other compounds that may be able to suppress carcinogenesis in animals are the soybean isoflavones. Soybean compounds reported to have other types of anticarcinogenic activity include soybean tryp-sin inhibitor, saponins and genistein. There is much evidence to suggest that diets containing large amounts of soybean products are associated with overall low cancer mortality rates, particularly for cancers of the colon, breast and prostate. It is believed that supple mentation of human diets with certain soybean pro ducts shown to suppress carcinogenesis in animals could markedly reduce human cancer mortality rates