

Irreversible effects on female brains from soy products - hhm
http://news.ncsu.edu/news/2008/07/wmspatisaulneurotox.php

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ken
I look forward to more research in this area, but note that the "female
brains" in the title refers to laboratory rats, not humans. Just about
everything fucks up laboratory rats; it's not the smoking gun the headline
suggests.

~~~
SwellJoe
It may not be a smoking gun, but there is definitely smoke around
phytoestrogens in soy products. There have been a few human studies in Japan
that indicate reduced testosterone in men, and other effects in women. Though
some studies have also indicated positive impact...reduced cancer risk and
hints of greater longevity being the most impressive.

Perhaps alleviating some of the alarm, many soy products have drastically
reduced levels of these compounds (tofu) or practically none at all (tempeh,
real fermented soy sauce), and in these cases the benefits of soy (high
quality protein, no cholesterol, low fat, etc.) almost certainly outweigh the
negatives, compared to almost any other source of protein (meat, for example,
becomes quite carcinogenic when grilled or cooked in pretty much any way that
produces browning or blackening in the meat, in addition to containing
cholesterol, no fiber, and lots of "bad fats").

So, while I'm not cutting tofu and tempeh and good soy sauce out of my diet,
or even reducing it (I'm a vegetarian, and it's a staple of my diet), I avoid
any form of raw soy: soy flour, edamame, soy milk, etc.

Also worth noting, soy in the forms that Americans most often consume it is a
new phenomenon. Soy was considered inedible until the past 20-25 years, and
it's only through extremely heavy marketing and lobbying pressure that soy has
become part of every Americans diet (whether they know it or not, in cereals,
in breads, in oils, and dozens of other places you would never think to look).
In the cultures where soy has been consumed for hundreds or thousands of
years, it has been in processed forms: tofu, tempeh, and soy sauce. Though
young salted soy beans (called edamame in the west) are a popular snack in
Japan and a few other places. Anyway, I'm suspicious of any food that has been
foisted on me by huge corporations...and soy popularity in America is very
much the result of a major corporate push. Corn is another fine example of
money making for dangerous agricultural policy, leading to serious nutritional
problems for a large segment of the population.

~~~
Prrometheus
There's been so many studies in the news about so many compounds that jiggle
your risk of this or that disease (usually cancer) up or down that I have
decided to just live a normal life and not worry about it while avoiding
obviously stupid things (like smoking tobacco regularly or ingesting
plutonium).

Then again, I usually find myself in the minority in any internet discussion.

------
zain
A blogspot blog plastered with ads doesn't ooze with trustability. I'd like to
see a better source before I believe this.

~~~
hhm
I found these too: <http://www.physorg.com/news136738827.html>
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080731140030.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080731140030.htm)
and the paper: <http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:15053943>

But actually I posted this here because I wanted some expert here to comment
on the article, as it worried me a lot.

