Soya bean, a perennial Asian staple, reduces the risk of breast cancer among Chinese women, a published study said on Tuesday.
Conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUH), the University of Southern California and the University of Minnesota, the study tracked more than 34,000 Chinese women in Singapore aged 45 to 74 for a decade.
Women who consumed soya proteins in amounts more than in a serving of soya bean curd or a glass of soya bean milk were 18 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer than those who ate less, said the findings in The Straits Times.
Eating a serving of soya bean curd or drinking a glass of the milk every day reduces the risk, the study said.
"Our study shows that the amount of soya needed is not high, and is easily achievable in a typical Asian diet," NUH associate professor Koh Woon Puay was quoted as saying.
Post-menopausal women, those with a higher body mass index and those who had consumed soya for longer, experienced the greatest reductions in risk, the study found.
The results are similar to those of eight other studies conducted on Asians. One in Japan showed an average 12 per cent reduction in breast cancer risk for those who eat the soya bean.
Studies on Caucasian women have been inconclusive, possibly because of the low levels of soya involved, the report said.
Koh cautioned against consuming too much soya, which could lead to conditions such as gout.
Separately, NUS' Centre for Molecular Epidemiology is planning a 10-year study of 12,000 Chinese, Malay and Indian women, with and without breast cancer, to find out how genetic and lifestyle factors interact to determine breast cancer risks. (dpa)
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