Word: soy
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Meanwhile, lab studies on rats have alternately suggested that isoflavones inhibit and stimulate breast-cancer tumor growth. Recent studies showing that estrogen in hormone replacement therapy actually increases the risk of breast cancer and heart disease in postmenopausal women have scared some women off soy...
...sprout a beanstalk into the heavens, but if even half the claims being made in behalf of the 5,000-year-old soybean are true, it may be the closest thing on earth to a magic bean. Not only is soy a low-fat food, but it's also believed to fight cancer, lower cholesterol, relieve hot flashes, boost bone density, brighten skin and even soften beards. Though none of these claims have yet been proved, manufacturers are riding high on the soy-is-healthy wave and pumping the marketplace full of soy products--some 300 new ones hit grocery...
...soy really as beneficial as people think? Researchers have focused on one particular group of compounds in soy: the isoflavones, which are also found in lower concentrations in other legumes. Isoflavones are phytoestrogens, or plant estrogens, that weakly imitate the body's estrogen--sometimes they have an estrogenic effect, other times anti-estrogenic. They are thought to help stave off breast cancer, lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease, among other things. Just last month a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggested that isoflavones may also reduce the risk of endometrial cancer...
Support for the idea that soy products protect against breast cancer comes mainly from epidemiological studies in Asia, where people have routinely been eating soy for thousands of years and where women have markedly lower rates of breast cancer than in the U.S. But whether that's due to soy remains uncertain. "The cultures are just so different in so many ways, in diet and other lifestyle factors," says Mark Messina, a Port Townsend, Wash., nutritionist and an expert on soy. "By itself, the low breast-cancer rate in Asia doesn't provide much insight into the possible effect...
...Ronkonkoma, N.Y., was selling mostly diet books and vitamins until 2000, when the success of the Carbolite candy persuaded executives to create more prepackaged foods. The company hired marketing veteran Paul Wolff as CEO, and since then it has launched nearly 100 low-carb products, from sliced bread to soy-based snack chips to a superpremium ice cream sold under Atkins' Endulge brand. Wolff says the "aggressive" pace of product rollouts will continue. "We're out to change the way the world eats," he says...