Men who eat the most soybeans are least likely to develop prostate cancer. The male hormone, testosterone, stimulates the prostate to grow and uncontrolled growth is cancer. The female hormone, estrogen, may help to dampen the effects of testosterone. We know that testosterone worsens acne and giving estrogen helps to treat this condition. The plant estrogen, genistein, probably dampens the effects of testosterone.
Plant estrogens help to prevent breast cancer because they are so much weaker than human estrogen.
Plant estrogen binds to estrogen receptors in breasts to decrease stimulation of human estrogen. Plant estrogen may do the same to prostate cells. A Bylund, JX Zhang, A Bergh, JE Damber, A Widmark, A Johansson, H Adlercreutz, P Aman, MJ Shepherd, G Hallmans. Rye bran and soy protein delay growth and increase apoptosis of human LNCaP prostate adenocarcinoma in nude mice. WJ Aronson, CN Tymchuk, RM Elashoff, WH McBride, C McLean, HJ Wang, D Heber.