Soy's Negative Effects (2009)

http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects

by 001sky • 13 years ago

54 46 13 years ago

r0h1n2• 13 years ago

I saw Soylent mentioned on the first page, and then this para from the NYT's Well page stood out even more starkly:

> "Last year, in its nutrition guidelines for cancer survivors, the American Cancer Society noted that eating traditional soy foods — like tofu, miso, tempeh and soy milk — may help lower the risk of breast, prostate and other cancers. But the guidelines do not recommend soy supplements, which tend to be highly processed and not very rigorously tested."

http://www.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2013/09/27/ask-well-is-it-...

Here's another piece about Soy's side effects from the Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soybean-fer...

zarriak2• 13 years ago

Soy is not used in Soylent. He named it after Make Room! Make Room![1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_(food_substitute)

r0h1n2• 13 years ago

You're right, and my bad at that wrong association.

jimgardener• 13 years ago

The nytimes blog entry is at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/ask-well-is-it-safe...

eloff• 13 years ago

My parents have been telling me this for years. I'm glad I listened.

stugs4• 13 years ago

This article is 4 years old and has been debunked over and over again.

This has a links to a number of studies on the subject

http://www.livestrong.com/article/548574-soy-protein-male-br...

privong• 13 years ago

Have a link or two handy for pieces that have debunked this?

maxerickson3• 13 years ago

That link has a reference (not a link) to one article that (apparently) provides contrary evidence. The only link provided debunks none of it.

stugs4• 13 years ago

You should probably scroll all the way to the bottom

pconf2• 13 years ago

These sorts of "studies" are still being published, many of them funded by the dairy industry. Has nothing to do with science or nutrition as is taught in college, it is simply sales and marketing not unlike similar studies done by the tobacco industry just a few decades ago.

kimonos• 13 years ago

Thanks for the info! I'm glad I never introduced my son to soy products..

mattstreet• 13 years ago

Is this going to be your only source of information on the subject?

stugs4• 13 years ago

The old adage "If it's on the internet it's true" is still alive and well... unfortunately

zarriak2• 13 years ago

I think almond milk tastes better anyways.

jacques_chester3• 13 years ago

Obligatory Examine.com link:

http://examine.com/faq/is-soy-good-or-bad-for-me.html

theboss2• 13 years ago

exactly (T)his. i (k)new you would beat me to posting. even control + f'd (Two) see if y(o)u beat me to postin(G)

I'm allergic to milk and have been taking soy protein, soy milk, etc. for years with no problems. My evidence is anecdotal but silverhydra's is not.

If anyone thinks there is a problem with soy, go read examine.

dhughes• 13 years ago

Why even drink soy "milk" why not water or some other liquid, or other animal milk you may not be allergic to?

It seems to me people are compelled to have a milk substitute whether due to allergy or ethical reasons as if we need to have something called milk in our fridges.

It reminds me of the tofurky a soy shaped turkey supposedly tastes like turkey, it would be like a person who eats a lot of meat making a carrot out of meat colouring it orange and making it taste like a carrot, why even bother.

throwaway98483• 13 years ago

What a pile of first world problems. I suspect a lot fewer guys will quit sugar and lose weight instead of quitting soy after reading this. And diabetes makes soy estrogen mimicking hormones look like kids' play when it comes to erectile dysfunction.

A guy in his 50s or 60s (well past when the boys are pumping out huge amounts of testosterone) drinking _3 quarts_ of soy milk per day is not exactly typical.

stugs4• 13 years ago

And don't forget, it was only one guy...

throwaway98483• 13 years ago

The NEJM it ain't. Thanks for the links to the debunking articles.

pconf2• 13 years ago

Who clearly has not take even one semester of college level nutrition.

JPKab• 13 years ago

I had the awful experience of (at the age of 15) having my father decide to be a vegan (due to a mid-life crisis) and replace all protein sources in our house with tofu and tempeh. It was fucking awful, and on top of the constant gas I had (going to high school with bad gas is itself torture) I remember having soreness and tenderness in the breast region. My progress in the weight room (I played football and wrestled) crumbled. It was my coaches who suspected the vegan diet at home. They didn't necessarily pinpoint soy, but essentially came to their own conclusion that I wasn't able to digest the soy protein, explaining my sudden inability to put on muscle.

Eventually, after 2 months, I rebelled and began getting meat wherever and whenever I could. I'm still very resentful of my father's sudden switch to veganism at my expense. I am particularly hateful of the PETA fanatics (it was a pretty woman he dated) who converted him from a hunter and fisherman to a silly fuck who wears turquoise and preaches animal rights. Did I mention his vegan diet of over 18 years has resulted in him having bad heart disease?

throwaway98483• 13 years ago

"Vegan diets do not result in heart disease. Many studies have shown that vegetarians seem to have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer." (http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter...). There are plenty of other of legitimate articles if you look for them.

You may have some kind of soy allergy. Your gas and breast experience is neither universal nor typical.

I won't question your unusually strong feelings towards PETA, but please don't confuse what they do with animal welfare. Also, your bad feelings towards your father will do you no good in life, and you should try to get on decent terms with him before he dies (considering his advanced heart disease).

lambda4• 13 years ago

This is why I am always extremely skeptical of any kind of diet extremism. I cringe any time someone labels something a "superfood", as that means they are likely to encourage eating it far beyond the point where it is healthy. I also cringe any time a dietary recommendation to remove a major macronutrient (fat, carbs) from your diet; that tends to lead to extreme compensation with something else, which can also be unhealthy.

And this is also why I cringe about the hype over Soylent. We really don't know all that much about nutrition. We are constantly discovering new things about it; it's an incredibly complex topic, the way our body interacts with different things that we eat. Coming out with a product that you're encouraging people to replace their entire diet with, and saying that it's safe because you have personally tested it for a couple of months, is insane. A lot of these kinds of effects can only be seen after years, or only impact 10% of the population, or the like.

    "In today's supermarkets," he says, his voice weary, 
    "you can't hardly get anything without at least some soy 
    in it."

It's funny that he says this. I eat very little soy, unless I've chosen to in the form of tofu or soy sauce. How do I manage this? By only buying things that don't need ingredient lists because they are a single ingredient. If you buy fresh produce, meat, flour, eggs, etc. and actually cook yourself, you can easily control what's in your diet. Don't buy prepackaged instant meals that you'll need to inspect the ingredient list of, and you'll be fine.

Anyhow, I'm sure that after articles like this, people will start doing the extreme reaction again, of "soy free" everything, replacing with something else that has some other potential health problem. Soy, in moderation, causes no problems for the vast majority of people. This guy is a special case, due to both his sensitivity and the extreme amount he consumed, replacing much of his protein intake with soy.

rdtsc2• 13 years ago

This is why I am always extremely skeptical of any kind of diet extremism.

That's my approach as well. Single ingredient things are hard though. Take meat or eggs. It is one ingredient but depending what that animal ate or drugs they've been injected, it is also hard to know what you are getting. At some point I just give up and stop worrying about it. Some people get way too obsessed about it, someone I know "owns" a fraction of a cow get accessed to unpasteurized milk, that is fine by me but not the level I would go to.

lambda4• 13 years ago

Yeah, even those can vary, but if you generally try to err on the side of local, organic, humanely raised, non GMO foods, you can be reasonably confident in the food you eat. Obviously you're never going to hit those all at once, and avoiding extremism in those areas can be good too; for example, sometimes people using organic pesticides can do more damage as they have to use much more pesticides than those using IPM with synthetic pesticides.

My approach is generally to err on the side of what's good, healthy, sustainable, and tasty rather than than what's cheap and convenient, but not to be an extremist about anything. I eat a mostly, but not entirely vegetarian diet; I get most of my produce locally when it's in season, but more shelf-friendly foods like flour I don't worry about getting locally.

iterative• 13 years ago

Red-blooded American Males: 1 Unwashed Hippies: 0

credo• 13 years ago

This report talks about new introductions to the American diet. However, though soy may be relatively new to the US, my understanding is that Soy and soy-based products like Tofu have been popular in countries like China and Japan for many centuries.

Has any research been done to establish whether soy has been harmful in countries where they've been eating it for generations ?

I'd also be curious to know whether the alleged "harmful" effect observed in soy-based products (like soymilk etc.) has also been observed in plain soybeans.

mrobot• 13 years ago

As much as people talk about how this is debunked, there was a period of about 6 months (early 30s) where i was drinking tons of Silk and i could swear it made me soft breasty, and i swear everything hardened up again when i quit.

cko• 13 years ago

This might be completely hypothetical, but might there be a genetic component?

I'm convinced (based on my heavy soy intake as an Asian male with no ill effects) that some people are less prone to what the guy in the article experienced.

lambda4• 13 years ago

Yes, various people have posted links to a variety of studies that have been done, and it seems like there is a good deal of individual variation, and that these kinds of effects only happen to people who are particularly prone and replace the vast majority of their protein intake with soy.

This has a summary of several pieces of research:

http://examine.com/faq/is-soy-good-or-bad-for-me.html

shawnee_• 13 years ago

Yes, but not the genetics of humans. My guess would be that the genetics of the soybean plants would be a more likely culprit for any strange hormonal reactions in men:

HT soybeans went from 17 percent of U.S. soybean acreage in 1997 to 68 percent in 2001 and 93 percent in 2013

source: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-geneticall...

The reality is that soybeans aren't genetically modified for nutritional reasons; they are modified for economic reasons, and GE foods haven't been around long enough for us to really know what kind of side-effects come from optimizing for the herbicide-tolerant "economics" side of GE.

vinbreau• 13 years ago

I have a friend who's son is being raised primarily by his ex-wife. They have a good relationship even divorced, especially where the son is concerned. Recently the boy stayed with his father for a week, during which he took him to the gym to get in shape. He's a little fat and his father wanted to help him work on his self-image. At the gym, the boy would not remove his shirt, and when he finally acquiesced and did his father found out it was because his son had considerable man-tits. Enough that they actually are looking like women's breasts.

The boy's mother had been feeding him soy milk and other soy products as a primary staple of their diet. She eventually caught on what was happening but only after it was too late. He's sworn off of soy. It's going to take considerable effort to undo what has happened to him, his doctor has even discussed the possibility of testosterone treatments to counteract the damage.

rdtsc2• 13 years ago

It is interesting that usually kids don't get a good diet because parents don't care enough about nutrition, just eat whatever is cheaper or faster. In this case it is the opposite, a soy diet is usually associated with being very conscious of what the child eats. Soy is usually associated with "healthy" eating. But it ended up having an opposite effects.

"Healthy" eating is a huge market. There is of course Whole Foods, whole isles devoted to it in regular stores. It is a good of course. But there is a lot of irrationality and guesswork going on. What is interesting is that it is often people who are considered "intelligent" that end up believing various fads and strange ideas about health and nutrition. Like say I know a smart guy, a good programmer, believed in Acai thing and was drinking that. Someone else is into colon cleansing. Another one is eating super-doses of vitamins. These are supposedly educated people, good logic, math and programming skills yet they believe these strange ideas. And because of their intelligence they are harder to convince, as they are a lot better at rationalizing things away.

Beserker• 13 years ago

Soy contains phytoestrogens. Rats fed soy products had significantly reduced testosterone levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogens

lindybomber• 13 years ago

This article treats soy like a poison. What makes a poison is the dose, and the stories cited are talking about enormous doses of soy. Too much water will give you dilutional hyponatremia, does that mean you need to cut it out of your diet? Here's a accessible article: http://blog.zocdoc.com/does-soy-feminize-men-fact-vs-myth/. And here's a study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378106. Sigh.

Soy's Negative Effects (2009)

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