Soy - Good, Bad or Evil?
Hello :)
I'm sure most people have read or heard that soy is a bit of a confusing subject, before I looked into it, I was under the impression that it's not healthy, but I wasn't even sure why, it was just what I had heard, at the same time as I started reading more into science based health related literature, I saw that quite a few of those books and articles brough out soy as something that could be healthy, so I just ended up really confused.
As would anyone else, I took my confusion to Google and simply searched "soy", it seemed that the google search results were just as confused as me, some of them said soy is horrible for you, others said it has it's benefits, so I ended up just more confused than I did before I did my search, so I did something unthinkable and instead of just trusting random people on the internet, writing their articles, I decided to do my own research and I'm going to also link all of the papers that I read, for those who might be interested.
So let's start with the main confusion point that I found. Soy contains isoflavones, which are the plant version of estrogen, studies done on rats have proven that the consumption of isoflavones raises the levels of estrogen and the improper balance of testosterone to estrogen in men can lead to a lower libido, fat accumulation around the waist and loss of energy, stamina and virility and man boobs (gynecomastia). For women high levels of estrogen could disrupt periods, fertility and put people at risk for breast cancer. That definitely sounds scary, however, further research into it has proven that the way rats metabolise isoflavones is different to the way humans metabolise it and therefore I wonder if those studies can really be taken seriously, so I dig deeper.
As a side note, I read a lot of hate posts on soy, which always bring out isoflavones as if they were exactly the same as estrogen and therefore making peope think that soy contains estrogen, it does not, just clearing that up.
So I went ahead and read actual studies done with soy and the consumption of isoflavones and this meta-analysis of 35 studies which reported results of association between soy isoflavone intake and breast cancer risk for pre- and/or post-menopausal women concluded that for Asian women the consumption of soy isoflavones can lower the risk of developing breast cancer, but when it came to Western women then there was no effect, positive or negative, to the risk of developing breast cancer.
From another research done on over 6000 women the general consensus was that a higher dietary intake of isoflavone was associated with reduced all-cause mortality.
So all in all from the researches and analyses that I read, it seems like these researches definitely show a connection between a higher level of isoflavones and lower risk for breast cancer or the higher levels of isoflavones play no part at all in affecting the risk of breast cancer, but I couldn't find a single proper research done that would prove that the higher amount of isoflavones from soy would increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
Since after that I felt like I had read enough of that subject, I decided to go and read about another accusation that people throw at soy and that is, that soy contains compounds that that can inhibit the thyroid’s ability to utilize iodine correctly which could lead to hypothyroid problems. I wrote can, but most posts I read said it as if it's a fact I'm very openminded here, so I'm going to take it as a claim rather than a fact, so I decided to see what the research said. Reseach done on that topic has mainly just proven that the compounds mentioned can be harful for those who already have thyroid problems, but they do not cause them, so I guess that's debunked.
The main problem that I saw when reading the mentioned soy hate posts and articles was that they did not link their sources, so I couldn't check if they were reliable or if they did link them, then the facts they quoted were taken out of context or the research itself was not reliable. A lot of the times the research would say that soy may do something or is loosely connected to something, but in the article itself they are stated as if they are facts, so that's something that bothered me personally.
I don't know if it's true, but the general feeling I got was that soy was for a while promoted as a magic food that would cure all misery, some people felt like that was not true and instead made soy look as if it's going to kill you if you ever ate it, both of those things are the extreme and the truth is somewhere in the middle. It's not going to do magic, but it may have health benefits, in the end, your health isn't determined by one thing that you eat often it's the combination of nutrients and therefore only looking at one of the aspects isn't going to lead to accurate results. Thats just how I feel, I'm still going to have soy in my diet, not every day, but every now and then.
Another thing that I don't like when reading articles, is when they start the topic already very strongly biased or in a tone that makes people feel like, if they do not agree with their statments or don't take them as the obious truth, then they are stupid, unintelligent and so on, for example if it starts "There are still people who believe that soy is a health food, but they are so wrong" or "We have been manipulated to think that soy is healthy, while it's actually killing us" and so on, that type of writing style makes me not want to read the post, I want to read a post that is neutral and gives the facts, I don't wish to be bullied into thinking something.
With soy, having less processed options is better, fermented soy products have been found to have some health benefits, so they're definitely an option worth trying out and there are some things I definitely would at elast try, that are soy based, if I was given the chance.
And that's all for this post, here are some links that I used for this post, so give them a read, if you'd like to know more:
See you in our next post, I might write more about soy, if I find some more interesting information, these are just some facts and thoughts that I found during my initial research.
Kaiela :)
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