posted October 07, 2008 08:35 PM         

The Evidence Against Soy

Dow Chemical and DuPont, the same corporations that brought misery and death to millions around the world through Agent Orange, are now the driving forces behind the promotion of soy as a food for humans. They are financing anti-meat and anti-milk campaigns aimed largely at those concerned about animal welfare and the environment, trying to convince them that imitations such as "soymilk" are not only healthier than the real thing, but better for the earth too.

There is no evidence that consuming soy products can improve health, reduce environmental degradation or slow global warming. In fact, the evidence suggests quite the opposite.

The studies below regarding the effects of soy on health are eye-opening, particularly the review by the American Heart Association -- which no longer supports the health claims about soy endorsed by the U.S. government.
Overall risks and benefits of soy assessed

Latest review by American Heart Association

Soy inhibits iron absorption

Poor iron bioavailability

Poor calcium bioavailability

Calcium and zinc absorbed better from milk than from soy -- even without phytates

Soy provides no benefits with respect to heart disease risk

Soy causes bladder cancer

Soy isoflavones during pregnancy increase breast cancer risk in female offspring

High levels of cadmium in soy formula

Soy linked to peanut allergy and increased risk for asthma

Whole milk vs. soy beverage -- asthma risk

Persistent sexual arousal syndrome associated with increased soy intake

Genistein: Does it prevent or promote breast cancer?

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

If you were to carefully review the thousands of studies published on soy, I strongly believe you too would reach the conclusion that any possible benefits of consuming soy are FAR outweighed by the well documented risks. Now, I’m not against all forms of soy. Properly fermented products like natto and tempeh have been consumed for centuries and do not wreak havoc in your body like unfermented soy products do. For example, the enzyme nattokinase—derived from natto--is a safer, more powerful option than aspirin to dissolve blood clots, and has been used safely for more than two decades.Unfortunately, many Americans still believe that unfermented and processed soy products like soy milk, soy cheese, soy burgers and soy ice cream are good for them.

85 Percent of Consumers Believe the Lies About Soy

The rise of soy as a health food is in large part due to highly successful marketing to otherwise health conscious Americans who set the trend. According to the survey [url=http://www.soyfoods.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/ConsumerAttitudes2008USB.pdf ]Consumer Attitudes About Nutrition 2008[/url] (by the United Soybean Board), 85 percent of consumers now perceive soy products as healthy.

The survey also found that consumers:
· rank soybean oil among the top three healthy oils, with 70 percent recognizing soy oil as a healthy oil, and
· depend on soybean oil, commonly sold as vegetable oil, as one of their two most frequent cooking oils· This is a tragic case of shrewd marketing of misinformation and outright lies taking root among the masses, which will likely take some time to undo.Ever since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a health claim for soy foods in 1999 (which said diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease), soy sales have skyrocketed. In the years between 2000 and 2007, food manufacturers in the U.S. introduced over 2,700 new foods with soy as an ingredient, including 161 new products introduced in 2007 alone. This has resulted in a booming multi-billion dollar business. From 1992 to 2007, soy food sales increased from a paltry $300 million to nearly $4 billion, according to the Soyfoods Association of North America.However, the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit nutrition education foundation, submitted a petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January of this year, asking them to retract its heart-health claim from soy in light of the inconsistent and contradictory evidence showing benefits, and its many proven health risks.

What’s So Wrong With Soy?

Unlike the Asian culture, where people eat small amounts of whole soybean products, western food processors separate the soybean into two golden commodities--protein and oil. And there is nothing natural or safe about these products.Says Dr. Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story, “Today's high-tech processing methods not only fail to remove the anti-nutrients and toxins that are naturally present in soybeans but leave toxic and carcinogenic residues created by the high temperatures, high pressure, alkali and acid baths and petroleum solvents." Dr. Daniel also points out the findings of numerous studies reviewed by her and other colleagues -- that soy does not reliably lower cholesterol, and in fact raises homocysteine levels in many people, which has been found to increase your risk of stroke, birth defects, and yes: heart disease.

Other common health problems linked to a high-soy diet include:
· Thyroid problems, including weight gain, lethargy, malaise, fatigue, hair loss, and loss of libido
· Premature puberty and other developmental problems in babies, children and adolescents
· Cancer
· Brain damage
· Reproductive disorders
· Kidney stones
· Weakened immune system
· Severe, potentially fatal food allergies
· Most soy, perhaps about 80 percent or more, is also genetically modified, which adds its own batch of health concerns. Despite these findings, many people still want to believe the hype, thinking that these studies must somehow be wrong. But the content of soy itself should be a clue. For example, non-fermented soy products contain:
· Phytoestrogens (isoflavones) genistein and daidzein, which mimic and sometimes block the hormone estrogen
· Phytates, which block your body's uptake of minerals
· Enzyme Inhibitors, which hinder protein digestion
· Hemaggluttin, which causes red blood cells to clump together and inhibits oxygen take-up and growth
· High amounts of omega-6 fat, which is pro-inflammatory

You’re Consuming Soy Whether You’re Buying “Soy Products” or Not

Even if you know better than to gulp down large amounts of soy milk, slabs of tofu, and other soy snacks, you are still consuming soy if you’re eating processed food, in the form of soybean oil and lecithin. So depending on your dietary habits, your (unfermented) soy consumption could really add up.In fact, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln at the National Institutes of Health told CNN.com he estimates that soybeans, usually in the form of oil, account for 10 percent of the average person’s total calories in the United States! When you consider that 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food goes toward processed food, this amount of “accidental” soy intake is not surprising. As a side note, I’d like to make a quick statement here to address some of my readers’ concerns about my reduced CoQ 10 supplement, ubiquinol, which also contain soy bean oil. Unfortunately, the reduced CoQ 10 (ubiquinol) – which is the optimal form of CoQ 10 that your body needs, especially if you’re over 25 – is only produced by a multi-billion dollar Japanese pharmaceutical company that holds ALL the world patents on it. Hence, there’s no way to replace the soy, even though that would have been my preference. However, as in all things, moderation is key. If I thought there were ANY significant health risks from consuming this small amount of soy oil, then I would not personally take two a day – which I do. I do however avoid all processed forms of soy products, and severely limit my intake of other unfermented soy, which is easy to do by simply avoiding processed and “fast” foods.

Which Soy Foods Should be Avoided … and How do You Avoid Them?

Because soy is so pervasive in the U.S. food supply, avoiding it is not an easy task. The best way to completely avoid soy in the food supply is to buy whole foods and prepare them yourself. This may also be your only option if you’ve developed a soy allergy and need to eliminate soy from your diet entirely. If you still prefer to buy readymade and packaged products, for whatever reason, Dr. Daniel offers a free Special Report, "Where the Soys Are," on her Web site. It lists the many "aliases" that soy might be hiding under in ingredient lists -- words like "boullion," "natural flavor" and "textured plant protein."

Which Soy Foods DO Have Health Benefits?

posted October 09, 2008 09:23 AM         

ROCK N ROLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!

posted October 10, 2008 09:46 AM         

Persoanlly I do not believe what anybody has to say, necessarially, I listen, read, study.... then intuite my decisions.

Soy has been wonderful for me. If I do not have something of soy in it on a daily basis I wake up in a sweat bath at night, alternating with horrible chills, which neither make for a very good night's sleep.

My mother had breast cancer and was on HRT and this I will never engage in. I do understand that soy has estrogen-like properties (isoflavones) but as I understand it they only act similar in the body as estrogen and are not actually true estrogen.

Having said this, I do not feel particullarly good about injesting "soy products." Soy milk, which is how I get most of my soy, one glass a day in coffee or if I do not drink coffee that day, a glass before going to bed at night, does not intuitively feel toxic to my body. However, alot of the soy products do, so I steer clear of them, limit my consumption.

I experienced edamame the other day for the first time and injesting soy in this way felt good, healthy.

I believe anything in moderation, listen to what your body wants and make decisions based on your personal needs.

posted October 10, 2008 12:34 PM         

I just love this comment. May i use it sometime?

posted October 11, 2008 08:48 AM         

______________________________________

Just wanted to pass this article along - the one i was talking about, i finally found it. This process is not natural. We should be eating more simplistically i think. It was enough to tell me that tofu is 'bad' for us. We need to stick more to what mother earth provides us....in it's raw natural form.

By John D. MacArthur "Tofu Shrinks Brain!"

Not a science fiction scenario, this sobering soybean revelation is for real. But how did the "poster bean" of the '90s go wrong? Apparently, in many ways -- none of which bode well for the brain. In a major ongoing study involving 3,734 elderly Japanese-American men, those who ate the most tofu during midlife had up to 2.4 times the risk of later developing Alzheimer's disease. As part of the three-decade long Honolulu-Asia Aging Study, 27 foods and drinks were correlated with participants' health. Men who consumed tofu at least twice weekly had more cognitive impairment, compared with those who rarely or never ate the soybean curd. [1,2] "The test results were about equivalent to what they would have been if they were five years older," said lead researcher Dr. Lon R. White from the Hawaii Center for Health Research. For the guys who ate no tofu, however, they tested as though they were five years younger. What's more, higher midlife tofu consumption was also associated with low brain weight. Brain atrophy was assessed in 574 men using MRI results and in 290 men using autopsy information. Shrinkage occurs naturally with age, but for the men who had consumed more tofu, White said "their brains seemed to be showing an exaggeration of the usual patterns we see in aging." Phytoestrogens -- Soy Self Defense Tofu and other soybean foods contain isoflavones, three-ringed molecules bearing a structural resemblance to mammalian steroidal hormones. White and his fellow researchers speculate that soy's estrogen-like compounds (phytoestrogens) might compete with the body's natural estrogens for estrogen receptors in brain cells. Plants have evolved many different strategies to protect themselves from predators. Some have thorns or spines, while others smell bad, taste bad, or poison animals that eat them. Some plants took a different route, using birth control as a way to counter the critters who were wont to munch. Plants such as soy are making oral contraceptives to defend themselves, says Claude Hughes, Ph.D., a neuroendocrinologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They evolved compounds that mimic natural estrogen. These phytoestrogens can interfere with the mammalian hormones involved in reproduction and growth -- a strategy to reduce the number and size of predators. Toxicologists Concerned About Soy's Health Risks The soy industry says that White's study only shows an association between tofu consumption and brain aging, but does not prove cause and effect. On the other hand, soy experts at the National Center for Toxicological Research, Daniel Sheehan, Ph.D., and Daniel Doerge, Ph.D., consider this tofu study very important. "It is one of the more robust, well-designed prospective epidemiological studies generally available. . . We rarely have such power in human studies, as well as a potential mechanism." In a 1999 letter to the FDA (and on the ABC News program 20/20), the two toxicologists expressed their opposition to the agency's health claims for soy, saying the Honolulu study "provides evidence that soy (tofu) phytoestrogens cause vascular dementia. Given that estrogens are important for maintenance of brain function in women; that the male brain contains aromatase, the enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol; and that isoflavones inhibit this enzymatic activity, there is a mechanistic basis for the human findings." [3] Although estrogen's role in the central nervous system is not well understood, White notes that "a growing body of information suggests that estrogens may be needed for optimal repair and replacement of neural structures eroded with aging." One link to the puzzle may involve calcium-binding proteins, which are associated with protection against neurodegenerative diseases. In recent animal studies at Brigham Young University's Neuroscience Center, researchers found that consumption of phytoestrogens via a soy diet for a relatively short interval can significantly elevate phytoestrogens levels in the brain and decrease brain calcium-binding proteins. [4] Concerns About Giving Soy to Infants The most serious problem with soy may be its use in infant formulas. "The amount of phytoestrogens that are in a day's worth of soy infant formula equals 5 birth control pills," says Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., president of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She and other nutrition experts believe that infant exposure to high amounts of phytoestrogens is associated with early puberty in girls and retarded physical maturation in boys. [5] A study reported in the British medical journal Lancet found that the "daily exposure of infants to isoflavones in soy infant-formulas is 6-11 fold higher on a bodyweight basis than the dose that has hormonal effects in adults consuming soy foods." (A dose, equivalent to two glasses of soy milk per day, that was enough to change menstrual patterns in women. [6]) In the blood of infants tested, concentrations of isoflavones were 13000-22000 times higher than natural estrogen concentrations in early life. [7] Soy Interferes with Enzymes While soybeans are relatively high in protein compared to other legumes, Enig says they are a poor source of protein because other proteins found in soybeans act as potent enzyme inhibitors. These "anti-nutrients" block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. Trypsin inhibitors are large, tightly folded proteins that are not completely deactivated during ordinary cooking and can reduce protein digestion. Therefore, soy consumption may lead to chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. [8] Soy's ability to interfere with enzymes and amino acids may have direct consequence for the brain. As White and his colleagues suggest, "isoflavones in tofu and other soyfoods might exert their influence through interference with tyrosine kinase-dependent mechanisms required for optimal hippocampal function, structure and plasticity." [2] High amounts of protein tyrosine kinases are found in the hippocampus, a brain region involved with learning and memory. One of soy's primary isoflavones, genistein, has been shown to inhibit tyrosine kinase in the hippocampus, where it blocked "long-term potentiation," a mechanism of memory formation. [9] Tyrosine, Dopamine, and Parkinson's Disease The brain uses the amino acids tyrosine or phenylalanine to synthesize the key neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, brain chemicals that promote alertness and activity. Dopamine is crucial to fine muscle coordination. People whose hands tremble from Parkinson's disease have a diminished ability to synthesize dopamine. An increased incidence of depression and other mood disorders are associated with low levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. Also, the current scientific consensus on attention-deficit disorder points to a dopamine imbalance. Soy has been shown to affect tyrosine hydroxylase activity in animals, causing the utilization rate of dopamine to be "profoundly disturbed." When soy lecithin supplements were given throughout perinatal development, they reduced activity in the cerebral cortex and "altered synaptic characteristics in a manner consistent with disturbances in neural function." [10] Researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institute at the National Institutes of Health and are finding a connection between tyrosine hydroxylase activity, thyroid hormone receptors, and depleted dopamine levels in the brain -- particularly in the substantia nigra, a region associated with the movement difficulties characteristic of Parkinson's disease. [11-13] Soy Affects the Brain via the Thyroid Gland Tyrosine is crucial to the brain in another way. It's needed for the body to make active thyroid hormones, which are a major physiological regulator of mammalian brain development. By affecting the rate of cell differentiation and gene expression, thyroid hormones regulate the growth and migration of neurons, including synaptic development and myelin formation in specific brain regions. Low blood levels of tyrosine are associated with an underactive thyroid gland. Scientists have known for years that isoflavones in soy products can depress thyroid function, causing goiter (enlarged thyroid gland) and autoimmune thyroid disease. In the early 1960s, goiter and hypothyroidism were reported in infants fed soybean diets. [14] Scientists at the National Center for Toxicological Research showed that the soy isoflavones genistein and daidzein "inhibit thyroid peroxidase-catalyzed reactions essential to thyroid hormone synthesis." [15] Japanese researchers studied effects on the thyroid from soybeans administered to healthy subjects. They reported that consumption of as little as 30 grams (two tablespoons) of soybeans per day for only one month resulted in a significant increase in thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which is produced by the brain's pituitary gland when thyroid hormones are too low. Their findings suggested that "excessive soybean ingestion for a certain duration might suppress thyroid function and cause goiters in healthy people, especially elderly subjects." [16] Thyroid Hormones and Fetal Brain Development Thyroid alterations are among the most frequently encountered autoimmune conditions in children. Researchers at Cornell University Medical College showed that the "frequency of feedings with soy-based milk formulas in early life was significantly higher in children with autoimmune thyroid disease." [17] In a previous study, they found that twice as many diabetic children had received soy formula in infancy as compared to non-diabetic children. [18] Recognizing the risk, Swiss health authorities recommend "very restrictive use" of soy for babies. In England and Australia, public health agencies tell parents to first seek advice from a doctor before giving their infants soy formula. The New Zealand Ministry of Health recommends that "Soy formula should only be used under the direction of a health professional for specific medical indications. . . Clinicians who are treating children with a soy-based infant formula for medical conditions should be aware of the potential interaction between soy infant formula and thyroid function." [19] Thyroid hormones exert their influence during discrete windows of time. Inappropriate hormone levels can have a devastating effect on the developing human brain, especially during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy when the fetus depends on the mother's thyroid hormones for brain development. After that, both maternal and fetal thyroid hormone levels affect the central nervous system. A 1999 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that pregnant women with underactive thyroids were four times more likely to have children with low IQs if the disorder is left untreated. The study found that 19% of the children born to mothers with thyroid deficiency had IQ scores of 85 or lower, compared with only 5% of those born to mothers without such problems. [20] Thyroid, Brain, and Environmental Toxins Children exposed prenatally and during infancy to common environmental toxins like dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can suffer behavioral, learning, and memory problems because these chemicals may be disrupting the normal action of thyroid hormone. [21] Combinations of insecticides, weed killers, and artificial fertilizers -- even at low levels -- have measurable detrimental effects on thyroid and other hormones as well as on the brain. [24] EPA scientists now want to upgrade the commonly used herbicide, atrazine, to a "likely carcinogen." In animal tests, atrazine attaches to sites on the hypothalamus, a crucial brain region involved with regulating levels of stress and sex hormones. [25] Individuals newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease were more than twice as likely to have been exposed to insecticides in their home, compared to those without the disease. [26] Soy formulas for infants can contain other neurotoxins: aluminum, cadmium, and fluoride. Studies found that aluminum concentrations in soy-based formulas were a 100-fold greater compared to human breast milk, while cadmium content was 8-15 times higher than in milk-based formulas. In an Australian study, the fluoride content of soy-based formulas ranged from 1.08 to 2.86 parts per million. The authors concluded that "prolonged consumption (beyond 12 months of age) of infant formula reconstituted with optimally-fluoridated water could result in excessive amounts of fluoride being ingested." A study of Connecticut children revealed that mild-to-moderate fluorosis was strongly associated with soy-based infant formula use. [27-30] In May 2000, Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility released their report, "The Toxic Threats to Child Development." In the section on neurotoxins, they concluded: "Studies in animals and human populations suggest that fluoride exposure, at levels that are experienced by a significant proportion of the population whose drinking water is fluoridated, may have adverse impacts on the developing brain." [31] Iodine vs. Fluorine The thyroid gland uses tyrosine and the natural element iodine to make thyroxine (T4), a thyroid hormone containing four iodine atoms. The other, much more biologically active thyroid hormone is tri-iodothyronine (T3), which has three iodine atoms. Lack of dietary iodine has long been identified as the problem in diminished thyroid hormone synthesis.