The soy peptide lunasin is able to prevent highly metastatic colon cancer from attaching to the liver, particularly in patients who have developed a resistance to chemotherapy. “When lunasin was used in combination with the chemotherapy drug oxaliplatin, we saw a six-fold reduction in the number of new tumor sites,” says Elvira de Mejia, associate professor of food chemistry and food toxicology at the University of Illinois. Almost all colon cancer deaths are caused when cancer metastasizes—or spreads—to the liver, de Mejia says. Until now chemotherapy has targeted the primary tumor because the process of metastasis is not well understood.
