A naturally occurring plant compound found in many legumes that acts as a phytoestrogen, a substance that mimics estrogen in the body.
From genista (the broom plant) + chemical suffix '-ein', named because it was first isolated from genista plants; the naming reflects 19th-century chemistry conventions of naming compounds after their sources.
Genistein is fascinating because it's a compound plants produce to protect themselves from insects, but when humans eat it in soy and other legumes, it can affect our hormones—it's one of those 'natural' chemicals that's turning out to have real biological effects worth studying.
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