There is research about the protective nature of phytoestrogens, but some believe that too much of these isoflavones can act as an endocrine disruptor, messing with the natural role of hormones and possibly the increasing risk of breast cancer, perhaps even fueling tumor growth in people who have estrogen-related breast cancer. So, what is the real link between soy and cancer? And how much soy is too much soy?

Is Soy Linked to Cancer?

Actually the opposite is true. In large studies of Asian populations in which the women eat a lot of soy, the evidence is strong that the more soy you eat, the lower your overall risk of breast cancer, and soy may even have a protective effect in keeping estrogen production in check.

A PLOS-One analysis of more than 30 studies showed that soy intake reduced the risk of breast cancer for both pre- and postmenopausal women in Asian countries (though the studies have not found as strong a protective effect in American women, possibly because Asian women tend to start eating soy at a much younger age than their Western counterparts). Other studies have found that soy may help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

The theory about why phytoestrogens may help ward off breast cancer goes something like this: Isoflavones are both weaker than the estrogen produced in your body and they. latch on to the Beta receptors for estrogen, thereby blocking actual estrogen from doing so. So if those plant substances replace the more potent hormone in your cells acting as a brake on actual estrogen, according to experts who explained this mechanism to The Beet. By doing so, they could actually help to ward off cancers that need animal-based estrogen to thrive.

“When it comes to estrogens, especially those that our own bodies make, there are two types of receptors,” explains Lee Crosby RD. “Alpha receptors and beta receptors for estrogen. Alpha receptors act like accelerators and tell cells to grow, while beta receptors act as braes and tell cells to stop growing. Estrogen binds to the alpha receptors and sends the signal to grow, while plant-estrogen binds to the beta receptors and does the opposite: Tells the cells to stop growing.”

Plant Estrogen Found to Lower Risk of Getting Breast Cancer

“The women in many of these studies are economic vegetarians,” explains Marisa C. Weiss, MD, the founder and chief medical officer of BreastCancer.org. “They eat soy throughout most of their life because it is an inexpensive protein — they’re not eating a lot of meat or dairy.” So the question is, she adds, “Is the soy lowering their risk of breast cancer, or is it because they are eating less meat and less dairy? Is it because they tend to be thinner? We don’t really know if it’s the soy itself, but we do know that people who eat soy throughout their life have a lower risk of breast cancer.”

The science gets trickier when you look at soy intake in women who are breast cancer survivors. This is because when studies are done either in test tubes or in lab rats, it appears that genistein, a major form of isoflavone, can encourage breast cancer tumors to grow. However, this effect has not been found in studies of actual human women (and those rats were not being fed whole soy foods, but isoflavone extracts).

In fact, studies have found that for women who are survivors of breast cancer, eating soy may actually be protective against a recurrence: A recent study in the journal Cancer found that for North American women with breast cancer, those who ate the most soy had the lowest risk of dying over the next decade. Another large study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that followed more than 5,000 breast cancer survivors found that women who ate the most soy had the lowest rate of recurrence and death at a four-year follow-up.

Because isoflavone and the breast-cancer drug tamoxifen both bind to estrogen receptors, there has been concern that soy could interfere with the treatment; but the JAMA study found that for women who had low-to-moderate soy intake while on tamoxifen, there was an increased rate of survival, and for women on tamoxifen who had high soy intake, the soy did not seem to affect their prognosis one way or the other.

Are some soy products better than others?

Dr. Weiss pointed out that in the Asian population studies, the women were not stopping into Trader Joe’s to load up on soy corn dogs. They are eating whole-food soy, such as tofu, edamame beans, tempeh, and soy milk. “Tofu is made from squeezing the soybean, then separating out the curd,” she explains. It is a completely natural food, low in cholesterol, fat-free, and filled with both protein and fiber, and as Dr. Weiss said, if you can buy organic, without pesticides, even better.

And of course, one of the key issues of eating soy is that it replaces much less healthy proteins in your diet, most notably, red meat. A study from the Harvard School of Public Health study found that women who ate red meat when they were growing up had a higher risk for breast cancer as adults. For each serving of red meat they ate per day as an adolescent, they had a 22 percent higher risk of premenopausal breast cancer; for each serving per day they ate as young adults, they had a 13 percent higher risk of breast cancer overall.

But wait, what about soy products?

The not-so-great news for me is that the soy products that are in many vegetarian and vegan products — kids’ beloved nuggets and corn dogs, not to mention all those protein shakes, health bars, and supplements on supermarket shelves—are not made with all-natural soybeans, but with soy protein isolates. “This is a concentrated pharmaceutical extract,” Dr. Weiss explains. “We don’t know what the health impact of these isoflavones may be, and I would avoid anything that could have a hormonal effect in concentrated doses.”

And indeed, in a paper from the American Society of Clinical Oncology that discusses the benefits of soy, the authors caution that supplements with soy isoflavones should be avoided since they provided very high doses of isoflavones and have not been studied closely enough. “Whenever there is concern about something, we want to operate from caution, it’s better safe than sorry,” says Dr. Weiss. “Always choose real food over processed food. If there is a veggie burger made of ground edamame, choose that over one made of soy isolates.”

Bottom Line: Soy in the form of beans, tofu, tempeh, miso, and soy milk is incredibly healthy and should be eaten often.

Start eating these soybean-based foods as young as possible to get the most protection against breast cancer. Soy products, however, are like any kind of processed food whether plant-based or meat-based: a hodgepodge of ingredients made in a lab that may or may not be doing harmful things to our bodies.

What you should do is take Dr. Weiss’s advice to heart: “Just eat real food.”

For more expert advice, visit The Beet’s Health & Nutrition articles. 

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We petted lambs and cows who had been saved from the slaughterhouse, met a horse with a prosthetic leg, and listened to volunteers explain how giving up meat would benefit not only our bodies but the entire planet. They didn’t do a hard-sell; they simply said, “Hey, if you decide to go veggie even one day a week, that’s a great start.”

As we drove back to our house that day, we made a spontaneous family decided to give up meat for one week, just as an experiment.

That one week has now stretched to nine years, and none of us can ever imagine eating chicken, steak, burgers, or lamb chops ever again. We have found the vegetarian life to be the easiest and most natural thing in the world, but when the girls were younger, I would often get bewildered looks from other parents when they discovered that my kids didn’t eat chicken fingers or hot dogs. Here are the most common questions I’ve heard over the years, and the answers:

But wait, is that healthy?

The answer to this is a resounding yes. As long as you make sure your child is eating a well-balanced diet, a plant-based diet has numerous health benefits, says Michelle Dern, MD, a pediatrician at Scripps Coastal Medical Center in Encinitas, CA, who works with many vegetarian families. “The immediate benefit of children eating a vegetarian diet is that they can have a stronger immune system and a healthier weight,” she explains. “Plus, over the long-term, a plant-based diet can lead to the prevention of chronic illnesses.”

In fact, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reports that children who eat a healthy vegan diet have a reduced risk for heart disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes, and have fewer problems with acne, allergies, and gastrointestinal problems than kids who regularly eat meat. (The acne factoid alone should have every teen in America switching to Impossible Burgers!)

Dr. Dern points out, though, that giving up meat is only half the equation of a healthy plant-based diet. “It’s possible for kids to eat all processed foods and pasta and cheese—and no fruits and vegetables—and claim they’re vegetarian.” To make sure your kids are getting the most out of their vegetarian diet, encourage them to hit all the food groups, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and plant-based proteins.

Can my kids get enough protein to grow?

There is a misconception that children and teens need to eat tons of animal-based protein in order to grow to a healthy size. But high-quality proteins can come from plant sources, too. Dr. Dern recommends that parents check out the vegetarian version of ChooseMyPlate.gov, which lists several filling proteins, including legumes, nut butters, tofu, and tempeh.

Will they need to take supplements?

That all depends, says Dr. Dern. If your kids are completely vegan, they will likely need to take B12 supplements—the nutrient, which is crucial for keeping blood and nerve cells healthy, is found primarily in animal products, including beef, poultry, fish, milk, and eggs, though many breads and cereals are fortified with B12. “Children are still developing neurologically, so they are at a greater risk for a B12 deficiency than adults are,” she explains. “If they eat vitamin-fortified products and take a supplement, that should be fine.”

You should also discuss with your pediatrician whether your kids are getting enough iron, calcium, and vitamin D, says Dr. Dern. “They can get iron and vitamin D from eating a lot of green vegetables and dairy,” she says. They should choose to drink a plant-based milk, like almond, oat or soy, that is fortified with calcium and vitamin D.

What do you do at birthday parties where all they have are hot dogs?

When you’re sending your child off to a party where you suspect the only food options will be hot dogs and chicken fingers, you have a couple of options. Your kid can always eat a big meal beforehand, and then just snack on potato chips, French fries, and birthday cake with the other kids (believe me, they won’t be the only kid feasting solely on the cake at the party). They can bring along a hummus wrap or another favorite veggie lunch to snack on while the other kids chow down on burgers. Or, if your kid is headed to a backyard barbeque, have her bring along some veggie hot dogs or veggie burgers and ask the grill master to cook ’em up.

Though other parents may disagree, I’ve told my kids that it is not the responsibility of the other parent to prepare something special just for them. But if your kid spends a lot of time with another family, the parents eventually figure this out and have a few veggie options in the fridge or freezer ready to go. Hey, I always had frozen “Rachel pizzas” ready in the freezer for my daughter’s best friend Rachel, who ate nothing but pizza from age 6 to 16, so how hard is it for another family to keep a stock of veggie burgers?

Can they still eat the school lunch?

The better question may be, do they want to eat the school lunch? With so many kids these days being allergic to nuts, or gluten-free, many school cafeterias have a variety of options. But honestly, most veggie parents I know find it easier for their kids to pack a fresh and healthy lunch (yogurt and fruit; hummus wraps; cold pasta with veggies) than to navigate the soggy salad bars and sad cheese sandwiches.

What do you feed a ravenous teenager?

A giant pot of veggie chili, veggie burritos and veggie tacos made from strips of grilled tempeh, a stir-fry filled with chunks of tofu and lots of crunchy cashews, eggplant parmigiana (with real or vegan cheese), sweet potatoes in any form, Beyond or Impossible Burgers loaded up with avocado, tomatoes and onions, rice and beans with veggie sausages… Getting full yet? Visit The Beet’s Recipe tab for more plant-based ideas.

Don’t the other kids tease them?

When my kids were little, years before they gave up meat, I taught them a very useful saying: “Never yuck someone else’s yum.” This comes in very handy—and it works in both directions. I have made sure they never make negative comments about their friends’ meat-based meals, and in turn, if someone asked why they are eating that weird-looking tofu thing, they just smile and say, “Mmm, I think it’s delicious!”

Sure, there were a few moments when some mean kid said something rude, but come on, there will always be something other kids make fun of.  And you know what? By the time my kids hit high school, many of those kids who couldn’t understand why my daughters preferred salad to chicken decided to try going veggie themselves.

When my older daughter was touring college campuses last year, she always asked about vegetarian and vegan options. And more often than not, the tour guide would say, “Oh, we have amazing vegetarian and vegan options in all the dining halls. They’re usually even better than the meat dishes!”

My daughter is now completely vegan. One week of “trying out the veggie lifestyle” turned into nearly a decade and we’re still going strong.

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