Consumption of soybean-rich diets is thought to provide significant health benefits such as prevention of cancer, primarily because of the high contents of factors such as the isoflavones genistein and daidzein. Isoflavones circulate and are excreted into the urine mainly as glucuronide and sulfate conjugates. This study was conducted to determine the urinary pharmacokinetics of sulfate and glu...

The beneficial effect of dietary soy food intake, especially for women diagnosed with breast cancer, is controversial, as in vitro data has shown that the soy isoflavones genistein and daidzein may even stimulate the proliferation of estrogen-receptor alpha positive (ERα+) breast cancer cells at low concentrations. As genistein and daidzein are known to inhibit key enzymes in the steroid metabo...

Daidzein, the main bioactive soy isoflavone in Nature, has been found to possess many biological functions. It has been investigated in particular as a phytoestrogen owing to the similarity of its structure with that of the human hormone estrogen. Due to the lack of comprehensive studies on daidzein metabolism, further research is still required to clarify its in vivo metabolic fate and interme...

Food samples (n 114) were prepared from vegetables commonly eaten in Europe. The glycosidic forms of the phyto-oestrogens daidzein and genistein were extracted from the dried foods into aqueous methanol. The isoflavones were quantified by GC-MS after hydrolytic removal of any conjugated carbohydrate. Completeness of extraction and any procedural losses of the isoflavones were accounted for usin...

Proper regulation of uterine contractility, both spontaneous and oxytocin (OT)-amplified, is essential for successful fertilization and maintenance of gestation. Previously, we showed that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), regarded as environmental pollutants, contributed to the increase in contractions of cyclic bovine uterus. In this paper, we hypothesized that phytoestrogens, plant-derived c...

In this study, analytical and preparative HPLC systems were utilized to obtain isoflavones from Korean soybean. The mobile phases were the ternary system of water/acetonitrile/acetic acid. The optimum operating conditions were experimentally determined with the analytical column (C18, 0.46x25 cm 5 micron and the preparative column packed with 15 micron. The experimental variables were the gradi...

The anti-inflammatory effects and antioxidant activities of individual isoflavones are well established although little is known about the photoprotective effect of their combination. The aim of this study was to investigate the photoprotective effects of different concentrations of genistein and daidzein individually or combined. We measured the expression levels of the cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-...

BACKGROUND Premature labor is a poorly understood condition. Estrogen is thought to play a key role and therefore the labor process may be affected by endocrine disruptors. We sought to determine whether or not an environmental toxicant, DDE, or dietary derived endocrine disruptors, daidzein and genistein, are associated with spontaneous preterm labor. METHODS Cases were defined as primiparou...

Recent findings indicate that soy isoflavones and their metabolites may play a role in mitigating postmenopausal bone loss. Equol, a metabolite of the soy isoflavone daidzein produced by intestinal bacteria, has shown some potential, but only 30-50% of the U.S. population is capable of converting dietary daidzein to equol. There are limited data on the pharmacokinetics of dietary racemic equol ...

The aim of this experiment was to evaluate the direct effect of genistein, daidzein and zearalenone on basal and hormone-induced lipogenesis and lipolysis in isolated rat adipocytes. In lipogenesis, daidzein and zearalenone were used at concentrations of 0.01, 0.1 and 1 mmol x L(-1) and genistein at concentrations of 0.01, 0.3, 0.6 and 1 mmol x L(-1). In lipolysis, concentrations of tested comp...