Word: soya
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...week, however, a U.S. researcher suggested an exotic explanation for the high incidence of stomach cancer among Koreans and other Far Eastern peoples. The culprit, Dr. David J. Seel told the James Ewing Society in Manhattan, may be a mold used in the preparation of a favorite Oriental delicacy, soya paste...
...Seel, who has studied 919 cases of stomach cancer at the Presbyterian Medical Center in Chonju, South Korea, described the annual ritual of making soy sauce and soya paste. Each winter, virtually every household makes loaves of soybean mash and stores them in a cool, dark place, often under the eaves, so that they will get moldy. To make sure that the mold develops, some Koreans buy a pure culture and spread it on their loaves. By early spring, a furry black or gray growth covers the mash. The Koreans scrape off this "exuberant fungus," as Seel described...
...substances called aflatoxins. For some animals, these are among the most powerful cancer-causing agents known. Moreover, says Seel, the stomach lining seems especially liable to damage, including cancer, in those with vitamin A deficiency. Among Koreans who had both low vitamin A readings and a high consumption of soya paste, stomach cancer was twice as common as among other groups...
...Though soya-paste molds might go far to explain the high incidence of stomach cancer in most of the Orient, they offer no clues to medical researchers in Finland, Chile or Costa Rica. But a combination of vitamin A deficiency with comparable molds or diet contaminants could conceivably be found in those places. In the U.S., vitamin A deficiency is known to be prevalent among Southern Negroes, and aflatoxins have been found in peanuts...
Still, the success of the product attracted the attention of the Monsanto Co. of St. Louis. It went in with Lo's Hong Kong Soya Bean Products Co. to create a new, more flavorful soy-bean drink called Puma, which has more than 100 flavor ingredients, including vanilla, orange and cinnamon. Monsanto's Hong Kong subsidiary, Lomond Ltd., will produce the powder concentrate for Puma. The first franchise operations are now being set up in Guiana and Taiwan, and several others are expected to follow soon in other parts of Asia and Latin America. Lo, who owns...