DOWNTOWN - The University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center of Hawaii is recruiting volunteers for a 13-month nutritional study that will monitor the effects of eating soy foods on breast cancer.

The local study will involve 100 healthy women between the ages of 18 and 50. To date, 70 women have volunteered, and 30 more are needed.

According to the principal investigator of the study, Dr. Gertraud Maskarinec, the women will receive tasty soy foods to eat, gift certificates and nutritional counseling for the duration of the study.

She is investigating a link between eating soy foods and breast health.

"Breast cancer is a disease that has become more common. But, in Japan, the risk for it is low," Dr. Maskarinec explained. "So there is a hypothesis that soy food is part of the reason for that. We would very much like to find some way of reducing breast cancer risk."

Participants will be asked to report in seven times during the 13-month period. The gift cards and foods are intended to compensate for their time.

"Women will eat two servings of soy per day for six months and, for another six months, they'll eat little soy," Maskarinec said. "They donate blood, urine and breast fluid to be analyzed in the lab. We need to understand what actually happens in the breast."

For more information on the study or to become a volunteer, call the staff at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii at 586-2997.