Soy foods hasve been found to be safe to eat after suffering from breast cancer, according to researchers.
HealthDay News reports that Dr. Xiao Ou Shu, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said, "We did not see any evidence that soy intake after breast cancer increases the risk of recurrence or deaths [from breast cancer]."
"Our study indicated that soy food intake among breast cancer survivors is safe and may reduce the risk of recurrence," she said.
She emphasized she is talking about soy foods, such as tofu and soybeans, and not soy supplements.
For the study, Shu evaluated data on 9,515 women who had participated in one of three studies of breast cancer survivors: Life After Cancer Epidemiology, Women's Healthy Eating and Living and the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival studies.
Shu reviewed information from food questionnaires on the women's soy food intake. The average time between breast cancer diagnosis and soy food evaluation was about 14 months, reports HealthDay News.
After a follow-up that averaged 7.4 years, Shu found 1,348 breast cancer recurrences and 1,171 deaths from breast cancer and other causes.
Compared to the women who ate the least soy, HealthDay News reports, women in the upper 10th percentile group for soy food intake had a 35 percent reduced risk of recurrence.
