Curcumin, isoflavone and androgen mix protects prostate

Boost your androgen level and protect your prostate at the same time? It sounds like a contradiction – in the medical literature 'androgens' and 'likelihood of prostate cancer' are almost synonymous – but according to urologists at Teikyo University in Japan it is possible. They did a test-tube study in which human prostate cancer cells were protected from prostate cancer by a mix of curcumin [structural formula shown below], soya isoflavones and androgens.

There are indications that naturally occurring phenols can protect men against prostate cancer. Extremely high doses of a single polyphenol have little or no effect, but a diet or supplementation with more or less normal amounts of different polyphenols probably is effective.

The researchers let the prostate cancer cells float around in fluids with increasing concentrations of curcumin, together with a compound that turns purple as cells’ vitality increases. The higher the concentrations, the less vitality the cells showed [squares]. The process was reduced somewhat when the dose was 10 micromoles [triangles] or 20 micromoles [diamonds] of isoflavones.