Soy Consumption with Equol Production and frequent Lactose ingestion in a Cohort of Healthy Puerto Rican Women Reveals Decreased Gut Health. EQUOL

Hispanic women are more likely to die of breast cancer, a health disparity attributed to the environment and diet. Moreover, our studies show that the bean isoflavone daidzein increases breast cancer metastasis in nude mice and upregulates the expression of pro-cancer proteins in mammary tumors and breast cancer cells. The active ingredient of daidzein is equol, which is metabolized from daidzein by gut bacteria found in ~30% of the population. Interestingly, one study shows that Hispanic women are more likely to be efficient equol producers than Caucasians. To test the hypothesis that high equol production by Hispanic women may contribute to breast cancer malignancy, we initiated a cross-sectional characterization of the equol production efficiency of a clinic-based sample of premenopausal Puerto Rican women. We hypothesize that the gut microbiota of breast cancer patients has bacteria that metabolizes daidzein into equol therefore they will exhibit different mcirobiomes.