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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

phytoestrogen diets, rats, cancerous growth, reproductive tissue

College

Life Sciences

Department

Plant and Wildlife Sciences

Abstract

In recent years, phytoestrogens (nonsteroidal, estrogen-like substances found in plant sources such as beans, rice, soy and wheat) have received extensive investigative research. However, current information about the amount of phytoestrogens in human diets is limited (4). Scientific research has alluded to possible benefits of diets high in phytoestrogens based on epidemiological studies done on Asian and Eastern European cultures (2). These studies indicate that consumption of a phytoestrogen-rich diet, as seen in traditional Asiatic societies, is possibly associated with a lower risk of the so-called “Western” diseases such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis (3). Epidemiological, animal and in vitro data especially encourage further assessment of the role of phytoestrogens in cancer prevention due to the lower incidence of hormone dependent tumors in Asia and Eastern Europe compared with western countries (1, 5). It is difficult to extract a single component of a total lifestyle from an epidemiological study, where several other significant lifestyle factors are operative, and expect to see a distinct correlation with disease without isolating a specific component, such as diet, and analyzing the experimental data. It may be that phytoestrogen ingestion needs to be life-long and combined with other dietary constituents and behaviors for the protective effects to be significantly manifest. Hence, the need to isolate a high phytoestrogen diet relating to cancer prevention warrants examination (5).

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