Continual Exposure To Isoflavone In Soy Foods Reduces Risk Of Colon Cancer

Soy-rich diets containing a bioactive isoflavone known as genistein are capable of repressing signals in the intestine that promote uncontrolled cell growth and malignancies, according to a U.S. study. Soy genistein apparently represses aberrant Wnt signaling through epigenetic modifications at the regulatory regions of certain genes. Continual exposure to genistein reduced the number of pre-cancerous lesions in the colons of laboratory rats by 40 percent and reduced Wnt signaling to normal levels, researchers said. The findings confirm that colon cancer is an epigenetic disease: dietary and environmental factors can influence genes to be switched on or off, leading to a change in disease susceptibility.