According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), black men have the highest incidence rate of prostate cancer in the U.S. and their mortality rates are more than double that of their white counterparts.
New research is offering prostate cancer patients hope and a powerful weapon in their fight against this pernicious disease.
Researchers at Northwestern University recently reported that a natural chemical found in soybeans, genistein, has the capacity to inhibit prostate cancer cells from becoming metastatic and spreading to other parts of the body. Genistein is the most abundant isoflavone found in soy. Isoflavones are heralded for their antioxidant properties.
The study included 38 men who had been documented as having localized prostate cancer. Participants were administered a pill once a day for one month prior to surgery. The findings indicated that the soybean drug had beneficial effects on the prostate cancer cells, causing an increase in the genes that suppress invasive cancer cells.
Raymond Bergan, professor of hematology and oncology at Northwestern University conducted the study. The study, which took place over a two-year period, was funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted at Northwestern’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. The study’s findings were presented in Philadelphia at the American Association for Cancer Research’s ‘‘Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research’’ conference.
African holistic medicine has long asserted that vegetables and fruits rich in antioxidants could be used to treat cancer. Professor Alloy Aghaji, a urologist at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, has long documented slow growth of prostate cancer to the eating of green vegetables like soybeans.
Prostate cancer is the second-deadliest form of cancer in men. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
