From space, to your dinner table, Food Scientist Yael Vodovotz is working to make food powerful enough to prevent and treat some cancers. At NASA she developed food for a possible mission to Mars. Now, she's creating bread, packed with soy and almond that may bring PSA levels down in men with prostate cancer.
"We looked at a group of compounds called isoflavens which are in soy," Yael Vodovotz, Ph.D., Professor at The Ohio State University in Columbus said.
Researchers say isoflavones may prevent cancer and the almonds have an enzyme that makes it easier for you to absorb them. 40 men with prostate cancer, including Gordon Renkes, ate the bread three times a day for eight weeks.
"I could never tell that there was anything different about the bread," Prostate Cancer Patient, Gordon Renkes said.
However, researchers could tell that it had an interesting effect. "What we did see was in 65 percent of the men in the study there was either a decrease or leveling of the PSA," Doctor Vodovotz said. Gordon included.
While the findings aren't conclusive, Gordon's not giving up his bread. "Eating something to help slow down the progress of a disease is one of the good ways to do it," Renkes said.
Doctor Vodovotz hopes those foods will help treat oral and esophageal cancers. When it came to the almond-soy bread, the team was researching how to get food to better absorb, when it made the observation about the
If you would like more information, please contact:
Yael Vodovotz, PhD
The Ohio State University