Great Read on Soy

[KryptoKnight]

This is just another article regarding soy.  Very interesting read.

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1512419

[Grandpa Bambu]

Thanks for the link...

GB

[Stratos]

I'm calling BS on that article.

They call him a doctor. I'd love to see his degree and thesis.

The site itself is a red meat, alpha male ego-booster. Of course they want to hear soy is bad for you.

The article contradicts itself. Apparently the soy decreases testosterone and raises estrogen. Well, it's quite uncommon for one thing to affect BOTH hormones. Therefore, soy probably only edits the testosterone OR the estrogen - if any - not both. The article contradicts itself then when it says females and males experience a decrease in sex drive. The females shouldn't have a decrease if their hormone is being increased, right?

[realist85]

Actually, no. In females, testosterone increases their sex drive.

Man, I hope this dude is wrong. I'm a vegetarian, because I hate the idea of eating an animal that was tortured to death. But, I also want to stay in shape and eat alot of soy. I hope this doesn't affect gyne. Just had surgery-looking to get back into the real world.

[outertrial]

I'm calling BS on that article.

Me too. Here is a more sober article

http://purifymind.com/Phytoestrogens.htm

Which points out that asians consume a lot of soy with no obvious ill soy effects. Dairy milk contains a lot of estrogen also, and alcohol also  inhibits testosterone. Who knows, in any case we're worried about soy causing gyne and theres no credible evidence of that tht I can find.

[KryptoKnight]

Look, this isn't the only article out there that discusses the negative side effects of Soy.  Why would it be so hard to believe that Soy has some negative side effects?

To outertrial: Read the entire article please, he goes over the Asian culture.

To Stratos: Calling the site a "red meat, alpha-male ego booster" is an ignorant comment.  Why the hell would people WANT to believe that soy is bad for you?  Take a second to think about that.  Many "meat heads" as I presume you are referring to have no problem ingesting soy.  This is not an anti-soy thread because soy is "sissy food" (since that's what you think people on this site think it is), it's an anti-soy thread because soy has been shown to have negative side effects.  Period.

To realist85: I don't believe there has been a direct link with Gynecomastia and soy, though I don't know for sure.  The choice to eat soy is up to you; I reccomend you continue to research since you say you are a large consumer.

Edit: If people didn't get it from the article, they're not saying that soy should be COMPLETELY cut out, but rather kept in moderation.  Google up "Soy" and realize that there are definately negative side effects from soy.  There's even an article from the FDA, what more do you want?  Moderation is key...

[outertrial]

I prefer quorn anyway.

[Stratos]

       There are negative effects to everything when abused, soy included. The thing is, this "Dr. Daniel" professes to hail some new finding saying soy will castrate us? I must chuckle a bit.

[KryptoKnight]

       There are negative effects to everything when abused, soy included. The thing is, this "Dr. Daniel" professes to hail some new finding saying soy will castrate us? I must chuckle a bit.

I wouldn't go so far as to say soy is abused... soy just should not be a main staple in a diet, doesn't matter if it's vegitarians or meat eaters.  And this "Dr. Daniel" is not the only researcher on the topic, go search for some other articles.

[Stratos]

       I have read other articles. Soy has plenty of issues, but hormone dealing is not a real direct main problem so much. Soy does, however, lower the body's capacity for extracting certain proteins, and this, in turn, does its part to diminish some testosterone-related influences - such as muscle growth.

       It should be noted, however, these issues can be overcome simply by countering the goitrogens and other negative aspects of soy with a food which shines in that area. In the above example, you would simply have to consume more/different types of protein.

       Nowadays it seems everything will kill you or harm you in some way. Conversely, things which were "bad" are now being seen as good - red wine, for example. I believe a good diet is all in balance. In this sense, making soy a staple of your diet if you simply make its counterparts staples also oughtn't hurt you any more than anything else.


Edited for grammar.

[outertrial]

Ive seen so many food scares in my life that evaporate into nothing. Anyway what he said about Asia doesnt stack up and none of those claims were referenced. For what its worth I lived in Japan for over a year, I never heard of any one say anything about tofu decreasing masculinity and Japanese people eat tonnes of soy. E.g.

Breakfast - Natto (fermented soy) and rice and miso soup
Lunch - Beefbowl with tofu and miso soup
Snacks - Edamame (salty soy beans in their pods)
Dinner - Udon noodles with beancurd and soy sauce
Probably washed down with soy milk.

Every single  day!

[headheldhigh01]

ditto on calling bs on that.  i know just a tiny little about the beef boys, and they're not above scares and lying.  and i understand the phytoestrogens, about 1/500th as effective as regular estro, compete for cellular receptors and can therefore inhibit the estro effect too. 

copying from a past post (bold below mine, wink his), since this comes up from time to time, this is why i as a 26-year gyne sufferer, remain highly suspicious of meat and dairy. i left out the parts on recent studies of arsenic in chicken, pcb's in fish, etc., though that was nasty too.  for anyone who didn’t know or remember, i'm vegan, meaning pure vegetarian, no eggs or dairy (though for ethics reasons more than the health, though that's a plus too), so see if you find this interesting.  from the 2/04 monthly newsletter of dr. michael greger:

V. MAILBAG: "Why did the Ukraine ban our meat?"
 
I just got an email from someone who read the hilarious column in Friday's San Francisco Chronicle (online at http://tinyurl.com/2b2qr) . Her questions was "I've heard about bovine growth hormone in the milk supply, but I didn't know that we used hormones in meat."
 
For more than fifty years, U.S. farmers have used both natural and artificial hormones to increase the growth rates of livestock. Just like bodybuilders can bulk up on steroids, these steroid hormones make cattle grow bigger and faster. Of course the USDA doesn't like to call them growth hormones, they call them "meat quality enhancers," which they note is a "more consumer friendly term."
 
According to the USDA, these hormones can eliminate as many as 21 days of feeding time-same weight, 21 days earlier-which saves lots of money. But Europe in the eighties had just gotten over this thing where little babies started growing breasts and menstruating after eating baby food made from veal calves pumped with the hormone DES and then there were all these cancers and genital deformities and so January 1st, 1989 Europe banned the production and consumption of hormone laden meat.
 
Major beef exporters such as Argentina. Australia, New Zealand, Brazil all agreed to ship hormone free meat to Europe, but the U.S. was not going to be stopped. Not only would the profits of the beef industry suffer (and we know how much the beef industry doesn't like to see things suffer Wink, but the profits of the hormone manufacturers- Monsanto, Eli Lilly, Upjohn-would take a hit. And as powerful as the beef lobby is, you do not mess with the pharmaceutical industry.
 
The US took the European Union before the World Trade Organization demanding that Europe drop its ban on American beef. And of course, the World Health Organization struck down Europe's public health law, and demanded Europe drop the ban or face stiff penalties. And Europe decided to maintain the ban and stomach the financial consequences, which it has for years now.  They are willing to pay $50 million dollars a year to protect their citizens from American beef.
 
Growth promoting hormones, with names like "Steer-oid" are fed, implanted or injected into more than 95% of U.S. cattle. They implant estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and a number of synthetic steroids. The FDA insists that, when properly used, these sex steroids pose no risk to humans.  This is the same agency, though, that, under pressure from the poultry industry, took 20 years to ban DES, the hormone that caused all the v.aginal cancers in the daughters of mothers exposed to it.
 
The European Union commissioned their own panel of scientists review the available research on the hormones in American meat and concluded that they "may cause a variety of health problems including cancer, developmental problems, harm to immune systems, and brain disease.  Even exposure to small levels of [hormone] residues in meat and meat products carries risks."
 
The European Commission identified one hormone in particular as a "complete carcinogen," acting as both a tumor initiator and a tumor promoter. They explained, "In plain language, this means that even small additional doses of residues of this hormone in meat, arising from its use as a growth promoter in cattle, has an inherent risk of causing cancer." The French Agriculture Minister simply declared that the United States had the, "worst food in the world." Even research done here by National Cancer Institute has found that some of the synthetic estrogen-like hormones U.S. ranchers continue to implant can indeed stimulate the growth of human breast cancer cells.
 
The U.S. government was not happy with Europe's report. The U.S. Agriculture Secretary held a press conference and said 'The European Commission has issued yet another misleading report."
 
In response the European Union replied, "The commission is deeply concerned about the US attempt to belittle the risk which scientists have identified. [We] cannot understand why the US has not reacted in a more responsible way to the conclusive findings of the scientific committee. It is all the more incomprehensible as pre-pube[scent] children are the population group most at risk from the hormones."
 
Indeed, because children they have such low baseline levels, an 8 year boy, for example, eating two burgers increases his level of sex hormones by almost 10%. And lifelong exposures like that might increase the risk of developing cancer.
 
The incidence of reproductive cancers has skyrocketed since U.S. farmers started using these sex steroids in meat. Compared to 1950, we have 55% more breast cancer, 120% more testicular cancer, and 190% more prostate cancer here in the United States. Now that's not to say that the hormones in meat are the cause, but as one prominent cancer researcher noted, "The question we ought to be asking, is not why Europe won't buy our hormone-treated meat, but why we allow beef from hormone-treated cattle to be sold [here in America]..." 

so far from being a culprit, i bet soy would keep us safer from gyne that i suspect has taken off in the last half century specifically because of the same meat and dairy industry, who time might just prove are to blame instead. 

[Fat-Elvis]

This definitely isn't the first time I've read about why men should avoid soy.  Is it BS or not?  Who knows, but I've seen enough semi-compelling info to get me to avoid it in large quantities, that's for sure.

[headheldhigh01]

anything in excess is probably not the best, but outertrial's point about japan is a good reason why that's not much of a worry.  and the article i quoted suggests you'd be at much greater risk from modern meat and milk instead.  even i shake a little to read that thing again, d_mned scary considering what gyne has cost me, holy f___ing sh_t 

[skyhawk]

This is an interesting thread. Soy is certainly very controversial. No doubt about that. I can't say if it contributes to Gyne or not, but when my physician called the recent explosion in marketing soy "a racket" and reminded me of soy's "estrogen like activity", that was enough for me to back away from soy.

I used to consume soy milk and soy protien shakes. Frequently. I did develop Gyne. Did the soy play a role? I dunno. And I never will know for sure.

As far as soys impact on thyroid function. My understanding is that this is a well known medical fact. Not speculation. I myself am a thyroid patient and have learned to avoid soy just for that if no other reason.

So all this talk about soy, and its potential to alter steroid hormone levels, and cause gyne.... Has anyone considered the dangers of cholesterol lowering drugs and their role in developing gynecomastia?

Skyhawk