Prostate cancer

Research on prostate cancer

According to Professor De Sy, about 2/3 of all cancers find their origin in factors from the environment (pollution, pesticides...) and living habits (smoke, nutrition,...). A lot of cancers can therefore be prevented by anticipating on these factors.

Professor De Sy does research on the development of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer lends itself well to research because this cancer grows slowly in time, from the beginning of the development to the final stage of prostate cancer takes 20 to 30 years.

The oriental kitchen and prostate cancer

Oriental people have a lower prostate cancer risk than people who live in Western countries. This is mainly due to living conditions, because as soon as oriental people settle themselves in the West and take over Western habits, their risk of prostate cancer increases. Not only prostate cancer risk is lower in the Orient, but also that of other hormonal dependent cancers, such as breast cancer.

The oriental kitchen uses more fruit, vegetables, soya beans. The soya beans contain high levels of isoflavones.

Soya beans

Soya isoflavones have the property to slow down the development of prostate cancer. When isoflavones are digested, equol is formed. Equol blocks the functioning of dihydrotestosteron (DHT) resulting in a reduced prostate cancer risk. However, according to Professor De Sy large quantities of soya products are necessary to be effective against prostate cancer: one must drink 1.5 litre soya milk or 250 grammes of soya burger daily. Oriental people also have more bacteria in their bowels which are necessary for the production of functional substances. Professor De Sy advises to take isoflavonen in the form of tablets, because they contain a lot of active components. He firmly believes that when men start to take supplements from 40 or 50, much less cases of prostate cancer would occur.

Source: Most of this information is coming from an article in Knack of August 4 2004: "soya appears to be a magic cure".

Scientific literature about prostate cancer and isoflavones

Soybean phytochemicals inhibit the growth of transplantable human prostate carcinoma and tumor angiogenesis in mice. J Nutr. 1999 Sep;129(9):1628-35