Regarding soy: do you have any reference or statistics for the effects described above? From what I know, asian women have a statistically lower probability of getting breast cancer (among others), precisely because they regularly eat soy and soy-based products. Yet itās well known that excessive levels of estrogen lead to a higher risk for breast cancer (and prostata cancer). IMHO, these two findings appear to contradict each other.
Discussion
Japan is a massive consumer of soy. We should probably be comparing data from Japan (male and female fertility rates) with western counterparts.
I suspect someone already did this just need to find the results.
Here is a short article in german on the comparison between Japan & US: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/wissenschaftler-mit-soja-gegen-brustkrebs-a-77521.html
The gist of it: soy contains phyto-estrogens which are hormone-like compounds that connect to those cell receptors used by estrogen, thereby blocking estrogen. From what I understand, this reduces the probability that estrogen can cause cancer, because the way it reacts with cells has been blocked.
Any studies or articles to the contrary?
Coming back to this discussion, what exactly did you mean by āartificial estrogenā? Did you mean phyto-estrogen (pseudo-hormones produced by plants) or estrogen produced pharmacologically & added to the products? Because from what I read, phyto-estrogen has a lot of beneficial effects pricisely because it binds to the cellās estrogen receptors yet has different functionalities. Thx in advance for clearing it up!
Here are a couple of publication on some of the perceived effects of soyfoods and soy-isoflavones:
https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2021.1895054
Forgot about this thread. But yes I was referring largely to phyto-estrogen, just a vague word choice. Which regardless of perceived benefits in one area, also disrupt the natural hormonal process. I hadnāt considered the prevalence (or not) of breast cancer, but I had heard a connection between Japanese high consumption of soy and the extremely low sex drive and birth rate of the Japanese population. Could have both effects.
One of the things I didnāt mention though that is also related to soy is the degree of Round Up in our food. My father did crop insurance adjusting for some time and one of the things he found is that certain crops wonāt mature fast enough but need for the plant to be dead in order to harvest. So literally right before they plan to harvest, itās apparently a common practice to soak the entire crop in some form of serious herbicide to kill everything. This gets absorbed into the soybean (and a few other crops are particularly bad in this regard). I saw a video at some point of someone breaking this down and they just tested some generic food that was heavy in soy for a dominant toxic herbicide. Above the āconsidered safeā levels. I donāt know how bad this is in different degrees/quality of soy or where it is sourced, but there just seems to be a *lot* of reasons to stay away from it from what Iāve found.
Thx for your reply & the clarification šš¼
Regarding pesticide load in crops, I completely agree with you! Crop farming has become so heavily industrialized that itās producing mostly unhealthy food, devoid of any nutritional value. Just recently, Iāve come across an information of how much topsoil is being washed away in the US alone, due to overfarming & degeneration of soil health. Baffles the mind! To live healthily, itās imperative IMHO to buy organic food or to grow it yourself.
Regarding soy & phyto-hormones, it seems to be a topic of current research. Clear statistical evidence for positive effects has yet to be produced (mainly due to the small sample size), but from what Iāve read, it appears that regular consumption of soy & soyfood ā assuming the consumed products have low to zero pesticide load ā has no detrimental effects on the human organism. Plus there seems to be a series of indications of positive effects, one of them being against cancer (or precursor cells). IMHO itās a very interesting topic to keep an eye on & keep up with research results!
Thx for your reply & the clarification šš¼
Regarding pesticide load in crops, I completely agree with you! Crop farming has become so heavily industrialized that itās producing mostly unhealthy food, devoid of any nutritional value. Just recently, Iāve come across an information of how much topsoil is being washed away in the US alone, due to overfarming & degeneration of soil health. Baffles the mind! To live healthily, itās imperative IMHO to buy organic food or to grow it yourself.
Regarding soy & phyto-hormones, it seems to be a topic of current research. Clear statistical evidence for positive effects has yet to be produced (mainly due to the small sample size), but from what Iāve read, it appears that regular consumption of soy & soyfood ā assuming the consumed products have low to zero pesticide load ā has no detrimental effects on the human organism. Plus there seems to be a series of indications of positive effects, one of them being against cancer (or precursor cells). IMHO itās a very interesting topic to keep an eye on & keep up with research results!
That would be an interesting case to compare to!