Green Tea and Soy

I have mentioned before that I have a small handful of roasted edamame when I drink my green tea. However, I had not given you the links to the articles that started this practice at our house. So I wanted to share those while I was thinking about it. Before you ask, this did occur to me as I was getting a mug of tea and a few edamame.

After reading that the very conservative Laboratory of Nutrition and Metabolism at Harvard wrote, “Our study suggests that soy phytochemicals plus green tea may be used as a potentially effective dietary regime for inhibiting progression of estrogen dependent breast cancer” I knew I needed to pay attention and put this into practice. Another study by the same group of scientists found a similar reduction of prostate cancer.  Here is the link to the abstract regarding breast cancer and the one regarding prostate cancer.  A more recent article by the same scientists studied the same combination of soy and green tea but looked at metabolic syndrome.  The article does a nice job of explaining why this combination may work, including a reduction in IGF-1 (a known tumor promoter).  That article is found here.

The bottom line of the studies is that preliminary animal testing suggestions that soy and green tea are more powerful nutritionally when consumed together. Since I read this we have been trying to have a handful of roasted edamame when I am having green tea. My husband and I don’t drink much soy milk or I may have tried adding that to the tea. Either way, it can’t hurt having a little soy with your tea.