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Compound in soy shown to prevent colon cancer from spreading

Category: Colon

Individuals who have received positive colon cancer test results may benefit from getting more soy in their diet. A new study has found that a molecule common to soy products may keep cancer cells confined to the colon, where they are more treatable.

The University of Illinois researchers who conducted the study said that colon cancer is really only deadly when tumor cells begin spreading to the liver. Once this takes place, the disease is less responsive to chemotherapy. However, when a peptide known as lunasin is added to common treatments, the cancer is less likely to spread, the researchers found.

"Two glasses of soy milk a day generally provide half the amount of lunasin used in our study," said Elvira de Mejia, who led the investigation. "It certainly seems feasible to create a lunasin-enriched product that people could consume in a preventive way."

Still, the results from the current are preliminary, as they were gathered from testing the soy peptide on cancer cells outside of the body. The next step would be to determine if the compound would have the same effect on colon cancer cells in lab animals, which the team said they are planning to do.