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Review
. 2021 Aug 30;13(9):3048.
doi: 10.3390/nu13093048.

Genistein: Dual Role in Women's Health

Linda Yu  1 , Eddy Rios  1 , Lysandra Castro  1 , Jingli Liu  1 , Yitang Yan  1 , Darlene Dixon  1
Affiliations
Review

Genistein: Dual Role in Women's Health

Linda Yu et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Advanced research in recent years has revealed the important role of nutrients in the protection of women's health and in the prevention of women's diseases. Genistein is a phytoestrogen that belongs to a class of compounds known as isoflavones, which structurally resemble endogenous estrogen. Genistein is most often consumed by humans via soybeans or soya products and is, as an auxiliary medicinal, used to treat women's diseases. In this review, we focused on analyzing the geographic distribution of soybean and soya product consumption, global serum concentrations of genistein, and its metabolism and bioactivity. We also explored genistein's dual effects in women's health through gathering, evaluating, and summarizing evidence from current in vivo and in vitro studies, clinical observations, and epidemiological surveys. The dose-dependent effects of genistein, especially when considering its metabolites and factors that vary by individuals, indicate that consumption of genistein may contribute to beneficial effects in women's health and disease prevention and treatment. However, consumption and exposure levels are nuanced because adverse effects have been observed at lower concentrations in in vitro models. Therefore, this points to the duplicity of genistein as a possible therapeutic agent in some instances and as an endocrine disruptor in others.

Keywords: dose-dependent; dual role; genistein; soya products.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Heatmap showing daily genistein consumption levels across 7 surveyed countries. Data from [58,59,61,62].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Major genistein metabolites. Data from [79,82,86,87,88,89]. Structures from [1,79].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relative growth of several cell lines at variable concentrations of genistein overlaid with serum levels of genistein for three populations. Data from [57,61,63,128,129,132,133]. Note that no (0) genistein marks a value of 1 relative growth unit. This is considered the control group for all studies. Also, note that none of the cell lines were reported to be prominent metabolizers of genistein. Concurrently, the serum concentration studies only assessed circulating genistein, while its metabolites (likely the most predominant forms in vivo) would presumably also have effects on the cell lines.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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