October 3, 2011 • 20 mins
Researchers have reached conflicting findings about the potential health impacts of soy phytoestrogens, including the relationship between soy, breast cancer and testosterone. But what does it all mean? Join Cristen and Caroline to learn more about soy.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen, I like
(00:21):
some soy products. I stay away from soy milk just
because it kind of takes me out, because really it's
kind of like bean juice you think about it, not
only milk, it's juice j But I do like uh tofu.
I do cook with it makes ter fry um. But
I don't know if you're aware of the controversy surrounding
soy that if you read anything about uh consuming soy,
(00:44):
all of it conflicts with each other. Sometimes it can
prevent cancer, sometimes it causes cancer, just depending on what
study you're reading. It's very confusing. Sometimes it will lower
your sperm counts. Sometimes it'll treat your test schools just fine.
It's a grab bag of study findings. And to answer
your question, Caroline, no, until I think I had maybe
heard here and there little bits and pieces about uh
(01:07):
these soy health findings, but had not really taken a
close look at it until you brought this question up
and the reason why we wanted to talk about soy
today because we don't do that much around food, but
because the results are so these health results are so gendered,
and we have some surprising facts about how much soy
(01:30):
all of us are ingesting in the United States. And
I just want to go ahead and say at the
beginning that you know, it's different for everyone. Just everything
in moderation, whether you're eating cake or whether you're eating tofu,
should all be in moderation. And so while some studies
have shown that eating soy can lower cholesterol and the
risk for certain types of cancer, researchers aren't exactly sure,
(01:54):
and increased soy intake is better for everyone. So just
keep that in mind as you're listening. We're all different,
you know, maybe increased or decreased soy intake could affect
people differently. Yeah, and I think by the end of
this podcast we will all be able to agree that
when it comes to UH science headlines, medical headlines, it
(02:16):
is important to take it with a grain of table salt, right,
iodized table salts. So let's let's get into this right,
we gotta we got a lot of ground to cover. Um,
soy contains a hormone called phyto estrogen. Actually it contains
to be more specific, iso flavonoids, which are metabolized in
(02:39):
our guts and become phyto estrogens. Now you can kind
of compare phyto estrogen to naturally occurring mammalian estrogen. But
um one author actually compared phyto estrogens to private jets.
Have you heard this this metaphor I have if you
if you imagine um our bodies as a giant airport,
(03:03):
I guess um estrogens are these jumbo jets that will
fly in and out and and enact all sorts of
behavioral and physiological and biological things in our bodies. UM
and phyto estrogens because they can bind to receptor sites
(03:24):
in um our bodily enzymes where normally estrogen would would
fill the gap. They doctors think that photo estrogens can
tinker with how um normal estrogen is released and absorbed
into our bodies. So while the estrogens might be the
jumbo jets, uh, the phyto estrogens would be more like
(03:45):
private planes just blocking up the runway. They're not as large.
They're typically described as very weak um estrogen mimics, but
nevertheless they do seem to have some kind of interaction
with um binding with those estrogen A. Right, they have
a phenomic ring which is a prerequisite for binding to
(04:06):
the estrogen receptor, and so this leads to the phyto
estrogens being able to act as estrogen agonists, in other words,
binding to a receptor and then triggering a response or
antagonists which blocks the binding of an agonist. Yeah, and
all of this interaction with estrogen is the reason why
a lot of researchers since the early two thousands have
(04:29):
been looking into the health effects of regularly consuming a
lot of soy, because, as we'll get into later, we
eat a lot of soy. I don't care if you
don't make tofu stir fry like caroline or eat at
a mom a when you get your sushi, you're still
eating a lot of soy, right, just take my word
for it. So, the reason why we often hear about
(04:51):
soy and breast cancer is because there's a connection between
estrogen rates in a woman's body and her chances of
breast cancer. In a nutshell, the higher estrogen the body releases,
the higher the chances of developing breast cancer. So some
studies have said, well, if you eat all those soy
and these phyto estrogens are going in and blocking those
(05:12):
estrogen receptors, not allowing them to bind and release. Then
it could serve as a protective kind of barrier to
developing breast cancer. Yeah, and there are a couple of
studies that talk about this, several actually a bit to
the that I want to mention RUM. There's a study
in the Journal of Nutrition UM of Asian people in
Asian countries as opposed to Asian people who come to
(05:34):
the west here and right to the west. UM, they're
found to have much lower incidents of prostate and breast
cancer than the populations from western developed countries. They tend
to have diets that are lower in fat, higher in fiber,
and much higher in phytoestrogens from soy intake. UM. And
it's possible that this contributes this diet not only the
(05:55):
phyto estrogens and soy, but the low fat in the
high fiber contribute to fewer or reports of cancer. UM
and Dr Neil Bernard Um, who wrote an article for
the Huffington Post called Settling the Soy Controversy. UM talked
about a two thousand eight study by the University of
Southern California that found women who average a cup of
(06:18):
soy milk or about half a cup of tofu a
day have about a thirty percent less risk of developing
breast cancer. So it's sort of there's a lot of
conflicting information out there that the estrogens can get all
this stuff pumping in your body and cause problems. But
then they're all also these studies that point out, well,
I don't know, it could benefit you, it could help you. Yeah,
And if we look at menopause for instance, UM, there
(06:41):
have been studies suggesting that soy products for women who
don't want to go the hormonal route as they go
through menopause. Uh, some have suggested that soy products could
be an effective substitute for treating the symptoms of menopause. Then,
come around to August of this year, the New York
Times reports and to study a double blind study UM
(07:03):
that found that women in the soy group had ingested
about twenty times as much soy as those taking the placebo,
and yet the researchers found no significant differences in bone density,
night sweats, insomnia, loss of libido, vaginal dryness, hot flashes,
and especially with the hot flashes, there were other studies
that we had seen previously that it said, hey, women
(07:25):
going through menopause experiencing hot flashes, guzzle out soy milk,
You'll be fine, right, But a lot of those studies
I noticed were from the midst of late nineties. So
it seems that we've made we we like I've been
researching those, you know, and contributing to the signing out
lab community. I mean, we do wear labcats when we
record this podcast, by the way. Um yeah, it seems
like the trend in more recent research is that, um,
(07:49):
it's sort of seems to be contradicting earlier research. So now,
oh my gosh, it can protect us against breast cancer,
whereas before, well I don't know, it could cause breast cancer.
And now it seems to be saying, oh, sorry, menopause,
the ladies, you're out of luck. Yeah, I mean cancer
will happen, menopause will happen, death eventually after all of that, Uh,
good luck. And it does seem like, yeah, you go
(08:11):
from the alarmist headlines to uh, kind of a tapering off.
And when we get into men's health, when it comes
to soy similar kinds of things, Uh, men's health magazine
actually did an article a few years ago on on
soys effects in the male body, and who wow, they
(08:33):
were terrified of soy. Yeah. They started out by discussing
cases of kind of comacia um in in men. Basically
these men who had developed abnormal breast tissue and loan behold,
they were drinking a ton of soy milk and we're
taking dietary supplements with soy milk in it, and again
and again throughout this article it was, um, kind of
(08:55):
all these anecdotal examples, study examples of how these phyto estrogens,
as you might imagine, could be having this these physiologically
feminizing effects on men. And so their big headline was
you know, oh no, soy right, soy sorry? I think
was really um, well, you know, going back to something
(09:17):
I mentioned earlier, and and a doctor points this out too,
it's all very individual. I mean, the the man that
they were talking to who experienced all this breast growth
and breast tenderness. Um, it's that's not going to happen
for all men. Just because you're a man and you
like tofu and ed a mom a and drinking soy milk,
it doesn't mean you're going to have abnormal breast development,
(09:38):
and a doctor in the article said, the problem is
when a thing like soy is touted as this wonderful
panacea for health, and people end up going overboard on it.
So it's the same thing. It might not affect you
the same way it affect your friends, but you also
don't want to start chugging soy milk. UM. The man
in the article uh It talked about how after his
wife passed away, he was looking to have a healthy
(10:01):
diet because he didn't have someone cooking for him anymore,
and so he was looking to do the right thing
for his body and he ended up just ingesting so
much of it that it had negative effects. UM. And
along with that, you know, we have the breast tissue development.
And then um, some studies finding a connection between soy
intake and lowered sperm count and men. And also there
(10:26):
was one um a ten percent higher incidents of a
rectile dysfunction in Chinese men who were consuming high amounts
of soy compared to Americans who avoided it. So again,
there were all of these headlines and Scientific American and
other publications saying, well, you know, maybe guys shouldn't shouldn't
be eating all of this, uh this soy either. But again,
(10:46):
I mean, if you think about all of the different
lifestyle factors that go into an individual's health outlook, isolating
it down to one particular nutrient that has now been
found to have just a grab bag of effects and
various people seems a little sketchy, right. Um. Yeah. The
Speaking of Scientific American a two thousand nine article UM
(11:09):
said that animal studies using soy suggested eating large amounts
of estrogenic compounds such as the isoflavones we mentioned um
might reduce fertility, trigger premature puberty, disrupt development of fetuses
and children. Um. Although they follow this up by saying
long term, more, long term studies are needed. Um. So
(11:31):
it just sounds like, oh my god, soy has all
these terrible effects. But a lot of study authors and
journalists out there are saying that so much of this
evidence is just inconclusive, that more studies need to be done.
Just like we said at one point that I wanted
to make about all these studies that we should also
keep in mind, um is Caroline you mentioned that, um,
(11:53):
some of these studies used rats like rodents to to
test UM the effects of soy, which is not uncommon
and obviously in in medical research rights are UM are
very necessary for that. But just because UM it's it's
sometimes a big leap to extrapolate effects and erodents to say,
adult humans. Just something else to keep in mind, right.
(12:17):
The Journal of Nutrition in broke down the potential roles
of phyto estrogens, and I think it illustrates perfectly how
unclear some research can be UM. The authors described phyto
estrogens as estrogen agonists whose actions could prove beneficial to
menapausal women like we talked about, but might contribute to carcinogenesis.
(12:41):
They also describe them as anti estrogens and anti proliferative
agents that could help to prevent estrogen dependent carcinoma by
antagonizing estrogen again like we talked about, but you could
also contribute to infertility by suppressing normal reproductive function. And last,
but not least, phito estrogens offer protection against environmental estrogens
(13:03):
by altering the steroid response threshold, but they could also
be considered developmental toxins that could disrupt sexual differentiation by
altering sex specific patterns of development. So naturally that leads
people to worry about infants drinking soy formula, although um
many pediatric UH authorities in the pediatric community have come
(13:26):
out and said no, I mean, it's it's fine, and
not to mention all of the hormone disrupting chemicals that
are not in our foods. So we are um getting
into our bodies through um chemicals in cleaning products and
bathroom products, plastic, plastic and stuff like that. I mean,
(13:48):
you know, it's it's uh, it's it's a dangerous world
out there. Gosh golli. Um. But here's here's the thing
about soy and this was to underscore or one reason
why it is important to educate ourselves about it. Because,
like I said, it does not matter if you don't
like the tofu, if you don't like the damami of
(14:10):
the soy milk, the bean juice as you call it.
Because as Michael Pollen, the author of In Defensive Food
and the Omnivores Dilemma, points out, he says that Americans
are eating even more soy products than ever before, more
than the Japanese or the Chinese do, because of subsidies
(14:31):
on these huge soy bean farms in American and South
American farms. That is basically Uh, the food industry is
having to put into so many of the manufactured, factured
products in refrigerators and on our tables, in the same
way that high fructose corn syrup isn't so much of
the food we eat today as well. Yeah. So, speaking
(14:51):
of groups of people who have a lot of soy
in their diet, um one study focused on elderly men
and women in Indonesia who pursue to believe in consuming
soy and phito estrogens for years. The assumption was that
they'd be super healthy and have great memories. They would
have had reaped all these benefits from eating a soy
heavy diet, and participants over age sixty eight who regularly
(15:14):
ate the most tofu actually had doubled the risk of
dementia and memory impairment as those consuming a more moderate amount,
And that led researchers to think, well, okay, let's focus
then on just hormones and hormone like products in the elderly,
so you know, different different effects, and again you have
to think of correlation causation. Surely, you know, could it
(15:36):
could it really be the tofu that is causing dimension
or is it simply a corollary factor? And Michael pollen
Um brings this up. Uh you know, he points out
that basically, like, yeah, these phido estrogen may have a
bad effect, they might have a good effect for that reason.
At least at the time that he was writing this,
I think this was a couple of years ago. Um,
(15:57):
he was saying that the FDA has declined to grant
the grass or generally regarded as safe status two. Soy
isoflavones used as a food additive. That doesn't mean that
it's banned from from being in there. They just don't
have that, um, that general stamp of approval. And then
he goes on to site a senior scientist at the
FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research who said the confidence
(16:20):
that soy products are safe is clearly based more on
belief than hard data. So, um, what's the what's the
net net of all of these all of these studies,
all this research on soy that is really in so
much of what we eat, especially processed food. I think
I think a good takeaway is that, I mean not
(16:43):
to not to get all lectury here, but eat a
balanced diet. I mean, they won one. One article I
was reading was talking about how if you're a vegetarian.
It doesn't mean you only have to eat soy products
all day long all the time. You know, there's the
Mediterranean diet, which is a lot of pasta, fresh vegetables, beans, fruits,
(17:03):
olive oil that has great benefits. But it's you know,
don't totally cut tofu and soy products out of your diet.
It's all just a matter of balance. Yeah, and uh
to summ up. Going back again to paullen Um, one
of like his his famous lines is I think it's
eat food mostly vegetables in moderation. And there you go.
(17:24):
So anyone out there there who has some insight on
this soy issue and like the sort of the gendered
effects health effects of soy, please let us know. Our
email addresses Moms Stuff and how stuff works dot com.
And we got a couple of emails here for you, Kristen.
(17:46):
This one is from Jacqueline. She says, my sisters and
I participated in one baby pageant when we when we
were less than a year old. A local store donated
our outfits. Our mom isn't normally the type of person
to put her children in pageants, but her friends and
family used her into it the reason we are a
set of identical triplets. My family thought it would be
hilarious to enroll three matching babies. We didn't place, which
(18:09):
is probably a good thing. I really think the child
beauty pageant thing is a little sick. She goes on
to talk about the roller Derby podcast and she said
that her sister, she and her sister joined a local
derby team, Little City roller Girls. I shared your podcast
with the team and they loved it. Whenever we drive
to away bouts, we listened to you on the road.
(18:29):
She says she is a super fan and listens to
every episode. Thanks Jacqueline, Thank you Jacqueline. Um and here
I have an email from Marianna and this is a
little bit of her a critique of our episode about
pregnancy tests. We were talking about the self exam self
pregnancy tests with the with the speculum yea, and she says, well,
(18:51):
I disagree with the idea that pregnant that pregnancy tests
are anti feminists. I do strongly believe that people in general,
and women in particular, are far too distant from their
own bodies. We know what's going on in our computers
and our cars and our phones, but we rarely look
at or into our own body. I think you should
both be careful about communicating positive messages about women's bodies,
(19:14):
including the quote unquote scary genital area. I think the
show does a lot to help women become aware of
their bodies, but it would be good to hear that
the hosts are at least open to the idea of
taking a look at your vagina now and then, even
if they don't actually do it themselves. I will have
you know, I know what my vagina looks like. I
have looked at it in a mirror. I am very
(19:36):
familiar with us, I assure you. And on that note,
our email address is mom Stuff and how Stuff Works
dot com. You can also find us over on Facebook
and at Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts, and you can
look at our blog read it when I like during
the week stuff Mom Never told you at how Stuff
(19:57):
Works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
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Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the
(20:21):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen, I like
(00:21):
some soy products. I stay away from soy milk just
because it kind of takes me out, because really it's
kind of like bean juice you think about it, not
only milk, it's juice j But I do like uh tofu.
I do cook with it makes ter fry um. But
I don't know if you're aware of the controversy surrounding
soy that if you read anything about uh consuming soy,
(00:44):
all of it conflicts with each other. Sometimes it can
prevent cancer, sometimes it causes cancer, just depending on what
study you're reading. It's very confusing. Sometimes it will lower
your sperm counts. Sometimes it'll treat your test schools just fine.
It's a grab bag of study findings. And to answer
your question, Caroline, no, until I think I had maybe
heard here and there little bits and pieces about uh
(01:07):
these soy health findings, but had not really taken a
close look at it until you brought this question up
and the reason why we wanted to talk about soy
today because we don't do that much around food, but
because the results are so these health results are so gendered,
and we have some surprising facts about how much soy
(01:30):
all of us are ingesting in the United States. And
I just want to go ahead and say at the
beginning that you know, it's different for everyone. Just everything
in moderation, whether you're eating cake or whether you're eating tofu,
should all be in moderation. And so while some studies
have shown that eating soy can lower cholesterol and the
risk for certain types of cancer, researchers aren't exactly sure,
(01:54):
and increased soy intake is better for everyone. So just
keep that in mind as you're listening. We're all different,
you know, maybe increased or decreased soy intake could affect
people differently. Yeah, and I think by the end of
this podcast we will all be able to agree that
when it comes to UH science headlines, medical headlines, it
(02:16):
is important to take it with a grain of table salt, right,
iodized table salts. So let's let's get into this right,
we gotta we got a lot of ground to cover. Um,
soy contains a hormone called phyto estrogen. Actually it contains
to be more specific, iso flavonoids, which are metabolized in
(02:39):
our guts and become phyto estrogens. Now you can kind
of compare phyto estrogen to naturally occurring mammalian estrogen. But
um one author actually compared phyto estrogens to private jets.
Have you heard this this metaphor I have if you
if you imagine um our bodies as a giant airport,
(03:03):
I guess um estrogens are these jumbo jets that will
fly in and out and and enact all sorts of
behavioral and physiological and biological things in our bodies. UM
and phyto estrogens because they can bind to receptor sites
(03:24):
in um our bodily enzymes where normally estrogen would would
fill the gap. They doctors think that photo estrogens can
tinker with how um normal estrogen is released and absorbed
into our bodies. So while the estrogens might be the
jumbo jets, uh, the phyto estrogens would be more like
(03:45):
private planes just blocking up the runway. They're not as large.
They're typically described as very weak um estrogen mimics, but
nevertheless they do seem to have some kind of interaction
with um binding with those estrogen A. Right, they have
a phenomic ring which is a prerequisite for binding to
(04:06):
the estrogen receptor, and so this leads to the phyto
estrogens being able to act as estrogen agonists, in other words,
binding to a receptor and then triggering a response or
antagonists which blocks the binding of an agonist. Yeah, and
all of this interaction with estrogen is the reason why
a lot of researchers since the early two thousands have
(04:29):
been looking into the health effects of regularly consuming a
lot of soy, because, as we'll get into later, we
eat a lot of soy. I don't care if you
don't make tofu stir fry like caroline or eat at
a mom a when you get your sushi, you're still
eating a lot of soy, right, just take my word
for it. So, the reason why we often hear about
(04:51):
soy and breast cancer is because there's a connection between
estrogen rates in a woman's body and her chances of
breast cancer. In a nutshell, the higher estrogen the body releases,
the higher the chances of developing breast cancer. So some
studies have said, well, if you eat all those soy
and these phyto estrogens are going in and blocking those
(05:12):
estrogen receptors, not allowing them to bind and release. Then
it could serve as a protective kind of barrier to
developing breast cancer. Yeah, and there are a couple of
studies that talk about this, several actually a bit to
the that I want to mention RUM. There's a study
in the Journal of Nutrition UM of Asian people in
Asian countries as opposed to Asian people who come to
(05:34):
the west here and right to the west. UM, they're
found to have much lower incidents of prostate and breast
cancer than the populations from western developed countries. They tend
to have diets that are lower in fat, higher in fiber,
and much higher in phytoestrogens from soy intake. UM. And
it's possible that this contributes this diet not only the
(05:55):
phyto estrogens and soy, but the low fat in the
high fiber contribute to fewer or reports of cancer. UM
and Dr Neil Bernard Um, who wrote an article for
the Huffington Post called Settling the Soy Controversy. UM talked
about a two thousand eight study by the University of
Southern California that found women who average a cup of
(06:18):
soy milk or about half a cup of tofu a
day have about a thirty percent less risk of developing
breast cancer. So it's sort of there's a lot of
conflicting information out there that the estrogens can get all
this stuff pumping in your body and cause problems. But
then they're all also these studies that point out, well,
I don't know, it could benefit you, it could help you. Yeah,
And if we look at menopause for instance, UM, there
(06:41):
have been studies suggesting that soy products for women who
don't want to go the hormonal route as they go
through menopause. Uh, some have suggested that soy products could
be an effective substitute for treating the symptoms of menopause. Then,
come around to August of this year, the New York
Times reports and to study a double blind study UM
(07:03):
that found that women in the soy group had ingested
about twenty times as much soy as those taking the placebo,
and yet the researchers found no significant differences in bone density,
night sweats, insomnia, loss of libido, vaginal dryness, hot flashes,
and especially with the hot flashes, there were other studies
that we had seen previously that it said, hey, women
(07:25):
going through menopause experiencing hot flashes, guzzle out soy milk,
You'll be fine, right, But a lot of those studies
I noticed were from the midst of late nineties. So
it seems that we've made we we like I've been
researching those, you know, and contributing to the signing out
lab community. I mean, we do wear labcats when we
record this podcast, by the way. Um yeah, it seems
like the trend in more recent research is that, um,
(07:49):
it's sort of seems to be contradicting earlier research. So now,
oh my gosh, it can protect us against breast cancer,
whereas before, well I don't know, it could cause breast cancer.
And now it seems to be saying, oh, sorry, menopause,
the ladies, you're out of luck. Yeah, I mean cancer
will happen, menopause will happen, death eventually after all of that, Uh,
good luck. And it does seem like, yeah, you go
(08:11):
from the alarmist headlines to uh, kind of a tapering off.
And when we get into men's health, when it comes
to soy similar kinds of things, Uh, men's health magazine
actually did an article a few years ago on on
soys effects in the male body, and who wow, they
(08:33):
were terrified of soy. Yeah. They started out by discussing
cases of kind of comacia um in in men. Basically
these men who had developed abnormal breast tissue and loan behold,
they were drinking a ton of soy milk and we're
taking dietary supplements with soy milk in it, and again
and again throughout this article it was, um, kind of
(08:55):
all these anecdotal examples, study examples of how these phyto estrogens,
as you might imagine, could be having this these physiologically
feminizing effects on men. And so their big headline was
you know, oh no, soy right, soy sorry? I think
was really um, well, you know, going back to something
(09:17):
I mentioned earlier, and and a doctor points this out too,
it's all very individual. I mean, the the man that
they were talking to who experienced all this breast growth
and breast tenderness. Um, it's that's not going to happen
for all men. Just because you're a man and you
like tofu and ed a mom a and drinking soy milk,
it doesn't mean you're going to have abnormal breast development,
(09:38):
and a doctor in the article said, the problem is
when a thing like soy is touted as this wonderful
panacea for health, and people end up going overboard on it.
So it's the same thing. It might not affect you
the same way it affect your friends, but you also
don't want to start chugging soy milk. UM. The man
in the article uh It talked about how after his
wife passed away, he was looking to have a healthy
(10:01):
diet because he didn't have someone cooking for him anymore,
and so he was looking to do the right thing
for his body and he ended up just ingesting so
much of it that it had negative effects. UM. And
along with that, you know, we have the breast tissue development.
And then um, some studies finding a connection between soy
intake and lowered sperm count and men. And also there
(10:26):
was one um a ten percent higher incidents of a
rectile dysfunction in Chinese men who were consuming high amounts
of soy compared to Americans who avoided it. So again,
there were all of these headlines and Scientific American and
other publications saying, well, you know, maybe guys shouldn't shouldn't
be eating all of this, uh this soy either. But again,
(10:46):
I mean, if you think about all of the different
lifestyle factors that go into an individual's health outlook, isolating
it down to one particular nutrient that has now been
found to have just a grab bag of effects and
various people seems a little sketchy, right. Um. Yeah. The
Speaking of Scientific American a two thousand nine article UM
(11:09):
said that animal studies using soy suggested eating large amounts
of estrogenic compounds such as the isoflavones we mentioned um
might reduce fertility, trigger premature puberty, disrupt development of fetuses
and children. Um. Although they follow this up by saying
long term, more, long term studies are needed. Um. So
(11:31):
it just sounds like, oh my god, soy has all
these terrible effects. But a lot of study authors and
journalists out there are saying that so much of this
evidence is just inconclusive, that more studies need to be done.
Just like we said at one point that I wanted
to make about all these studies that we should also
keep in mind, um is Caroline you mentioned that, um,
(11:53):
some of these studies used rats like rodents to to
test UM the effects of soy, which is not uncommon
and obviously in in medical research rights are UM are
very necessary for that. But just because UM it's it's
sometimes a big leap to extrapolate effects and erodents to say,
adult humans. Just something else to keep in mind, right.
(12:17):
The Journal of Nutrition in broke down the potential roles
of phyto estrogens, and I think it illustrates perfectly how
unclear some research can be UM. The authors described phyto
estrogens as estrogen agonists whose actions could prove beneficial to
menapausal women like we talked about, but might contribute to carcinogenesis.
(12:41):
They also describe them as anti estrogens and anti proliferative
agents that could help to prevent estrogen dependent carcinoma by
antagonizing estrogen again like we talked about, but you could
also contribute to infertility by suppressing normal reproductive function. And last,
but not least, phito estrogens offer protection against environmental estrogens
(13:03):
by altering the steroid response threshold, but they could also
be considered developmental toxins that could disrupt sexual differentiation by
altering sex specific patterns of development. So naturally that leads
people to worry about infants drinking soy formula, although um
many pediatric UH authorities in the pediatric community have come
(13:26):
out and said no, I mean, it's it's fine, and
not to mention all of the hormone disrupting chemicals that
are not in our foods. So we are um getting
into our bodies through um chemicals in cleaning products and
bathroom products, plastic, plastic and stuff like that. I mean,
(13:48):
you know, it's it's uh, it's it's a dangerous world
out there. Gosh golli. Um. But here's here's the thing
about soy and this was to underscore or one reason
why it is important to educate ourselves about it. Because,
like I said, it does not matter if you don't
like the tofu, if you don't like the damami of
(14:10):
the soy milk, the bean juice as you call it.
Because as Michael Pollen, the author of In Defensive Food
and the Omnivores Dilemma, points out, he says that Americans
are eating even more soy products than ever before, more
than the Japanese or the Chinese do, because of subsidies
(14:31):
on these huge soy bean farms in American and South
American farms. That is basically Uh, the food industry is
having to put into so many of the manufactured, factured
products in refrigerators and on our tables, in the same
way that high fructose corn syrup isn't so much of
the food we eat today as well. Yeah. So, speaking
(14:51):
of groups of people who have a lot of soy
in their diet, um one study focused on elderly men
and women in Indonesia who pursue to believe in consuming
soy and phito estrogens for years. The assumption was that
they'd be super healthy and have great memories. They would
have had reaped all these benefits from eating a soy
heavy diet, and participants over age sixty eight who regularly
(15:14):
ate the most tofu actually had doubled the risk of
dementia and memory impairment as those consuming a more moderate amount,
And that led researchers to think, well, okay, let's focus
then on just hormones and hormone like products in the elderly,
so you know, different different effects, and again you have
to think of correlation causation. Surely, you know, could it
(15:36):
could it really be the tofu that is causing dimension
or is it simply a corollary factor? And Michael pollen
Um brings this up. Uh you know, he points out
that basically, like, yeah, these phido estrogen may have a
bad effect, they might have a good effect for that reason.
At least at the time that he was writing this,
I think this was a couple of years ago. Um,
(15:57):
he was saying that the FDA has declined to grant
the grass or generally regarded as safe status two. Soy
isoflavones used as a food additive. That doesn't mean that
it's banned from from being in there. They just don't
have that, um, that general stamp of approval. And then
he goes on to site a senior scientist at the
FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research who said the confidence
(16:20):
that soy products are safe is clearly based more on
belief than hard data. So, um, what's the what's the
net net of all of these all of these studies,
all this research on soy that is really in so
much of what we eat, especially processed food. I think
I think a good takeaway is that, I mean not
(16:43):
to not to get all lectury here, but eat a
balanced diet. I mean, they won one. One article I
was reading was talking about how if you're a vegetarian.
It doesn't mean you only have to eat soy products
all day long all the time. You know, there's the
Mediterranean diet, which is a lot of pasta, fresh vegetables, beans, fruits,
(17:03):
olive oil that has great benefits. But it's you know,
don't totally cut tofu and soy products out of your diet.
It's all just a matter of balance. Yeah, and uh
to summ up. Going back again to paullen Um, one
of like his his famous lines is I think it's
eat food mostly vegetables in moderation. And there you go.
(17:24):
So anyone out there there who has some insight on
this soy issue and like the sort of the gendered
effects health effects of soy, please let us know. Our
email addresses Moms Stuff and how stuff works dot com.
And we got a couple of emails here for you, Kristen.
(17:46):
This one is from Jacqueline. She says, my sisters and
I participated in one baby pageant when we when we
were less than a year old. A local store donated
our outfits. Our mom isn't normally the type of person
to put her children in pageants, but her friends and
family used her into it the reason we are a
set of identical triplets. My family thought it would be
hilarious to enroll three matching babies. We didn't place, which
(18:09):
is probably a good thing. I really think the child
beauty pageant thing is a little sick. She goes on
to talk about the roller Derby podcast and she said
that her sister, she and her sister joined a local
derby team, Little City roller Girls. I shared your podcast
with the team and they loved it. Whenever we drive
to away bouts, we listened to you on the road.
(18:29):
She says she is a super fan and listens to
every episode. Thanks Jacqueline, Thank you Jacqueline. Um and here
I have an email from Marianna and this is a
little bit of her a critique of our episode about
pregnancy tests. We were talking about the self exam self
pregnancy tests with the with the speculum yea, and she says, well,
(18:51):
I disagree with the idea that pregnant that pregnancy tests
are anti feminists. I do strongly believe that people in general,
and women in particular, are far too distant from their
own bodies. We know what's going on in our computers
and our cars and our phones, but we rarely look
at or into our own body. I think you should
both be careful about communicating positive messages about women's bodies,
(19:14):
including the quote unquote scary genital area. I think the
show does a lot to help women become aware of
their bodies, but it would be good to hear that
the hosts are at least open to the idea of
taking a look at your vagina now and then, even
if they don't actually do it themselves. I will have
you know, I know what my vagina looks like. I
have looked at it in a mirror. I am very
(19:36):
familiar with us, I assure you. And on that note,
our email address is mom Stuff and how Stuff Works
dot com. You can also find us over on Facebook
and at Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts, and you can
look at our blog read it when I like during
the week stuff Mom Never told you at how Stuff
(19:57):
Works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
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Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the
(20:21):
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