Soybean products found to be effective in lowering risk of stomach cancer for men

By Kim Joo-heon Posted : February 22, 2023, 17:17 Updated : October 24, 2023, 22:28

[Gettyimages Bank]

SEOUL -- Researchers discovered that consuming food products made of soybean lowers the risk of stomach cancer. The protective effect against cancer was high among males with a body mass index of fewer than 25 kilograms (55.1 pounds) per square meter while it was not observed in men with overweight or obesity.
 
According to London-based cancer charity the World Cancer Research Fund International, stomach cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the world. Data released by the Global Cancer Observatory, owned by an intergovernmental agency, showed that the number of new stomach cancer cases in 2020 was about 1.09 million. Mongolia showed the largest portion of gastric cancer -- 32.5 per 100,000 people, followed by Japan with 31.6 per 100,00 people and South Korea with 27.9 per 100,000 people. 
 
A research team led by two professors at Seoul National University College of Medicine -- Shin Woo-kyoung and Kang Dae-hee -- found out that men who consumed soybean products more than twice a week can more likely to avoid stomach cancer by 37 percent than those who barely consumed such products.
 
"Our results suggest that a high consumption of soybean products has a protective effect against gastric cancer," the team said in a paper published on June 2022 in the European Journal of Nutrition, a peer-reviewed journal.
 
They came up with the conclusion through an experiment that included 139,267 people aged 40 to 69 for nine years. A total of 46,953 participants in the experiment that started in 2004 were men. The paper said two substances with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant features -- genistein and isoflavone -- contributed to lowering the risk of stomach cancer.
 
However, the effect was not found in female participants regardless of their weight. The exact reason was not disclosed.  
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