Genistein: An Integrative Overview of Its Mode of Action, Pharmacological Properties, and Health Benefits

Table 2

The main key findings of clinical studies regarding genistein therapeutic potential.

Diseases	Key findings of clinical studies	Ref
Cancers	Anticancer and cytotoxic activity
Breast cancer	Short-term dietary soy stimulated breast proliferation and progesterone receptor expression	McMichael-Phillips et al. [238]
	Weak estrogenic activity	Hargreaves et al. [239]
	Breast tissue modulation; Biodistribution of the phytoestrogens in this tissue	Bolca et al. [243]
	↓Risk of fibroadenomas	[244]
	↓Efficacy, ↓prevention for breast cancer possible adverse effect in premenopausal women	[245]
Endometrial cancer	↓Endometrial hyperplasia without atypia, ↓endometrial thickness, ↑estrogen receptor beta (ER-β1) staining	[9]
Prostate cancer	↓Serum cholesterol; No effects on biomarkers prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and p105erB-2	Urban et al. [250]
	↓Androgen-related biomarkers (KLK4), ↓cell cycle-related genes (p27Kip1)	[254]
	↑Apoptosis in low- to moderate-grade tumors	[256]
Urinary tract cancer	↑Superoxide generation after cisplatin treatment, ↓protein kinase	Yasuda et al. [265]
	↓Phosphorylated epidermal growth factor receptor (p-EGFR), ↓cell proliferation	Messing et al. [160]
Pancreatic cancer	↓Akt, ↓NF-κB	El-Rayes et al. [266]
Colon cancer	No effect on colorectal epithelial cell proliferation	Adams et al. [268]
Menopause	↓Climacteric symptoms: ↓hot flushes, ↓visfatin, ↓insomnia, ↓depression	[269]; [270].
Diabetes and lipid metabolism	↓Risk of diabetes	[280]
	↑Antioxidant effect on retinal cells in preretinopathic diabetes patients	[281]
	↑HDL, ↑apolipoprotein A-1, ↓LDL, ↓apolipoprotein B	[276]
Neurodegenerative diseases	Genistein did not show an improvement in cognition capacities in the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease	[284]