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Are Soy Phytoestrogens Ideal for Preventing Chronic Diseases and Treating Cancer?

There are more than 4,400 Phytoestrogens in the plant kingdom. None have been researched more than the soy-phytoestrogens for their beneficial health effects. Epidemiological studies clearly show lower cancer (breast, prostate, ovarian) and other chronic diseases in Asian countries with high intake of Isoflavones. Conclusions from soy studies have been controversial because uniformity has been lacking in what constitutes a “soy” study. Whole soy versus soy protein or isolates from soy; fermented soy versus unfermented soy; concentrations and types of soy Isoflavones and/or their metabolites are different in studies. All soy products are not equal and results vary depending on the soy composition and its processing.

Eighty percent of advanced cancer patients die from protein calorie malnutrition. This condition is enhanced by the toxic side effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments which promote mal absorption, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, depression and stress that further decreases immune function and the patient’s will to live. In the field of cancer, fermented soy proteins and photochemicals are establishing a strong position for their incorporation in the cancer patient’s diet. The National Cancer Institute has documented, as part of its “Best Case Series” program, sole therapy treatment with fermented soy improves both the quality of life and lifespan of terminal cancer patients. Some terminal cancer patients became cancer free and remained cancer free for more than five years.

A $20 million National Cancer Institute study in fruits and vegetables discovered five effective classes of anti-cancer compounds. All are in soybeans! These were identified as isoflavones, protease-inhibitors, phytosterols, saponine and phytic-acid compounds. The soybean contains anti-viral, anti-allergy, anti-inflammatory, vasodilator, and anti-cancer compounds. There are more than 9,000 studies on soy and its beneficial compounds performed since the NCI published there paper in April, 1991. Many of these studies show that unfermented soy products have drawbacks contrary to fermented soy that indicated to be more beneficial. The mechanisms of action include DNA repair, anti-angiogenesis, restoration of apoptosis, immune stimulation, detoxification, improved estrogen metabolism, enhanced organ function, reduction of cell division times (mitosis), suppression of cancer promoting genes, and prevention of cancer cell mutations induced by chemotherapy.

Conclusion: Fermented soy products are known to contain high concentrations of Isoflavones, protease inhibitors, saponine, phytosterols, and phytic acid compounds that exhibit anticancer activity in preclinical models. Research supports the prospective evaluation of fermented soy products as an alternative therapy in patients with chemotherapy refractory ovarian cancer and other cancers that are not responsive to chemotherapy. The use of these products to enhance chemotherapy, reduce toxic effects of chemotherapy and prevent mutations induced by chemotherapy offers new hope for many patients. In addition, these products can help the physician manage disease while it is treated with conventional therapies resulting in improved treatment compliance and patient outcomes. The greater role of soy phytoestrogens and the other soy compounds may be found in the field of anti-aging and preventive medicine because of their ability to repair DNA resulting in the prevention of diseases or improvement in disease conditions caused by existing DNA damage.

Soy elixir offers hope to cancer patients
By Roja Heydarpour

An empty bottle of Haelan, a fermented nitrogenated soy drink believed by homeopathic practitioners and cancer patients to help the body maintain good health. Patients with suppressed immune systems are advised to drink a bottle of Haelan every day. The drink, which is produced in Mongolia, costs 31 dollars a bottle. (Michael Keller/ CNS)

Wendy Brantley, 26, looks through a scrapbook she made during one of her bouts with apilocytic astrocytoma, a neurological cancer. She believes in the positive health effects of Haelan, a Mongolian fermented soy drink. She drinks a bottle of the brown, sludgy liquid every day along with the 50 pills she must consume to fight the cancer. (Michael Keller/ CNS)
Bottles of Haelan, a fermented soy drink believed to help people maintain good health, in Wendy Brantley's refrigerator. Brantley, 26, drinks a bottle of Haelan every day to help her body combat neurological cancer. (Michael Keller/ CNS)

Wendy Brantley, 26, looks through a scrapbook she made during one of her bouts with apilocytic astrocytoma, a neurological cancer. She believes in the positive health effects of Haelan, a Mongolian fermented soy drink. She drinks a bottle of the brown, sludgy liquid every day along with the 50 pills she must consume to fight the cancer. (Michael Keller/ CNS)
Haelan is a thick beige liquid made of fermented soybeans that tastes like bitter earth. But for a growing number of cancer patients, it offers the sweet hope of recovery from the disease and especially from the harmful effects of cancer treatments.

Wendy Brantley, 26, of Lewisville, Texas, is a believer in Haelan, which remains little known in traditional medical practice and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a cancer therapy. Brantley has lived with spinal cancer for half of her life and has found relief from the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy after she started drinking Haelan six years ago.

“We call it stinky tofu back home,” said Dr. Vijaya Nair, a Singapore native and the director of clinical trials for the Haelan Research Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit group. In China, fermented soy has long been valued for its high nutritional content, and scientist Walter Wainright brought it to the United States 14 years ago. Wainright, founder of the research foundation, also started Haelan Products to manufacture the drink. The fermentation process, according to Wainright, concentrates soy's nutrients, which aid the body’s ability to shrink tumors while keeping healthy cells strong so that patients can handle the toxic effects of chemotherapy.

Ensuring that cancer patients receive proper nutrition as they battle the disease is a major challenge. According to the National Cancer Institute, 40 percent of cancer patients in the United States die of malnutrition, not the disease itself. But some experts warn that Haelan or any soy product could be harmful to certain cancer patients because of the natural estrogens that soy contains. “It would be dangerous for patients with breast cancer as, obviously, a soy product contains phytoestrogens,” Dr. Barrie Cassileth, head of integrative medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, wrote in an e-mail message. “It probably won’t hurt people who can take in soy products, but it’s not likely to help anyone, either.”

Ann Gaba, a clinical nutritionist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, concurred. “That’s pretty controversial,” she said of Haelan therapy. “A lot of breast cancer patients avoid soy, especially if they’re taking tamoxifen.” Nair, the Haelan researcher, dismissed the concerns. “That’s nonsense, that’s the old way of thinking,” Nair said. The phytoestrogens found in soy are far weaker than the estrogen produced by the body or found in contraceptives, which can be harmful to breast cancer patients, she said.

Brantley is not interested in the medical controversy. She has gone through two surgeries, radiation and three different types of chemotherapy since the seventh grade. Although the first surgery was a success, her right side was partially paralyzed after the second one. When the tumor returned in 1998, she was too weak for another operation so her doctors turned to radiation therapy. But the radiation caused memory loss, and her doctors chose to administer chemotherapy, which made her depressed. Her physicians then tried yet another kind of chemotherapy.

Brantley’s grandfather was also fighting cancer and introduced her to a nutritionist who started her on Haelan. She stopped taking chemotherapy and began drinking a bottle of Haelan a day. It brought her body back to health and the tumor didn’t grow, Brantley said.
It has been hard for Brantley to afford Haelan even at the discounted rate of $30 a bottle. Brantley and her mother have had to be resourceful in order to raise enough funds for the treatment. If Haelan were to be tested and approved by the FDA, it could lead to increased production and lower costs for patients.

Nair and Wainright would like to conduct clinical trials in order to gain FDA approval and increase Haelan's availability as a cancer therapy alongside chemotherapy and radiation. But there's a Catch-22: In order to raise money for clinical trials, more doctors and patients need to purchase Haelan. But without clinical trials and published results, it is very difficult to persuade physicians to use it. Billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies can fund trials for their new drugs, but the small Seattle-based company can't.

In the meantime, Brantley takes her chemotherapy, drinks a bottle of Haelan every morning and seems perfectly healthy to the unsuspecting eye. Her boyfriend fills the bottle with water when she’s done and drinks the last drops of what he calls “the magic juice.”