The dangers of Soy

[StephK]

Hi. I gave birth to a daughter 4 months ago and my husband and I want to raise her vegan. He has been a vegan for 18 years but I have only been for about 2. I recently read an article which said that unfermented soy (i.e. soy milk, veggies burgers) should not be eaten because it can cause brain damage and developmental abnormalities in infants. It also said that soy formula is an (and I quote) abomination and causes serious reproductive problems in baby girls.
Is there somewhere I can go to get more objective information about soy and what is the general consensus about the quantity of soy that should be consumed on a weekly basis?

Thanks!

Stephanie

[Christa]

Was the article that you read perhaps written my Mary Enig or Sally Fallon? They are well known for claiming that soy causes all sorts of problems however the "research" that they cite is extremely questionable. They also recommend feeding your baby a formula made out of liver, if I remember correctly, along with using lard and lots of other animal products in liberal amounts in one's diet.

I found the reviews of Fallon & Enig's book on amazon.com to be rather amusing. Aside from the large following they have who wrote glowing reviews of their advice, there were a number of people who wrote that they followed their advice to eat tons of animal protein & suffered strokes & heart disease as a side effect.

Okay, that complaint aside :p , it is hard to find unbiased sources on soy b/c there is such a large constituency out there seeking to make soy into poison and anyone who claims otherwise is made out to be stupid or in the pocket of the soy industry. I did like John Robbins' discussion of soy: http://www.foodrevolution.org/what_about_soy.htm

And, you can always go right to the source & search the National Library of Medicine's online database of research articles: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi Just type in something like "soy and human health" or "soy and _____" fill in the blank with whatever you are concerned about such as "brain damage." (Incidentally, that search will turn up nothing but two articles on babies who were made sick by drinking a defective soy formula.)

As a solely anecdotal sidebar, I have been vegan for 16+ years, ate banana smoothies w/ soy milk during both of my pregnancies & both of my girls have eaten some unfermented soy products for their entire lives. My older dd will be seven in August. She is half way through reading the 4th Harry Potter book & has rec'd multiple awards at school for academic achievement. My younger one will be entering kindergarten in the fall (5 in Sept.) She, too, shows no signs of brain atrophy nor developmental abnormalities. If anything, both of my girls were ahead of average on all of their developmental milestones (other than my older one was toward the later end on walking, but most of the babies on dh's side are late walkers). I guess that we'll have to wait to see on their reproductive health, but I certainly had no problems in that arena; in fact birth control was largely ineffective for us!

[ariix]

Yup definitely sounds like the Weston A Price ladies...
Maybe it was the same article that my parents had last week!:p (or, most likely the little article we read was getting its refernces from the one you read.) (btw there are other thread(s?) on this subject, i think in the health forum, you could check those out too...)
I was looking into it afterwards and found that aside from the obvious tempeh and miso etc, tofu and soy yogurt were also considered "fermented", so it seems the only "unfermented" ones are soymilk and the processed meat substitutes (and plain old soybeans i suppose)? And sure, the processed stuff might not be great to eat on a regular basis, but imho it's a matter of moderation...
After my parents showed me the article, my dad and I spent a while looking at the WAPF website... mostly picking apart and laughing at what they said on their 'vegetarianism' page :p ... My dad said hearing about all these studies and stuff he doesn't know who to believe (I said, just believe what you read in the China Study and that's all that's important :p ) but he did agree with the points I brought up about the faulty logic in lots of the stuff we read, and was laughing along with me...
As for the formula I have no idea... But I mean a lot of people were raised on that stuff in the 50s and 60s and have had children themselves by now... When I have kids if there is some reason why I absolutely cannot breastfeed I know I'd choose soy over cow's milk..

[shai]

I drank a ton of soy milk when I was pregnant and I ate soy ice cream like it was nothing and my son turned out fine. He just turned a year old yesterday and we are planning on weaning him onto fortified soy milk. He already has it on his cereal for breakfast.

[Janine]

And what about all those Asian countries that use soy as a large part of their diets? After hundreds of years I'm sure thay would have notied if it was causing problems.
Janine

[Christa]

Originally posted by Janine
And what about all those Asian countries that use soy as a large part of their diets? After hundreds of years I'm sure thay would have notied if it was causing problems.
The claim from the WAPF folks is that people in Asian countries do not, in fact, eat much soy at all and that we have all been fooled into thinking that they eat much more than they do. The article that Mothering had a bit back that was written by a WAPF associate stated that most Asians eat something like a tablespoon of soy/day that. Of course, there were a lot of letters to the editor pointing out how the author manipulated the data or was simply a very poor mathmatician b/c her figures were grossly inaccurate. However, there are a lot of gullible people out there who will believe virtually anything if the author sounds convincing enough.

[Fiona]

Christa, (our resident research expert!), do you know of any credible studies on the possible negative effects of soy, where humans are the subjects? I know there are many dubious studies e.g. where rats are fed soy not as humans would consume it (e.g. using isolated components, or in raw form etc etc). And I know Weston Price use human case studies, where as few as one person has had a particular adverse effect from consuming soy. But has anything been published that is half way credible?

Fiona

[Christa]

Thanks, Fiona :o !

Well, here's about all I've got. For the most part, there are a lot of allegations, but very little (if any) research to substantiate the allegations of danger related to soy. From what I have seen, there have not been any peer-reviewed research studies done showing soy to be detrimental to adult health. It is harder to study children for a variety of reasons. One area where there seems to be conflicting information (and limited studies) is the effects of soy formula. Of course, I'd avoid formula all together if at all possible, so it is hopefully something that one can avoid anyway.

There is no proof that soy formula is damaging, but there is also no proof that it is beneficial where there are good studies out there showing soy to benefit adult health.

There are some studies planned or beginning, though, so maybe we will have some actual answers in a few years. One study begun in 2002 is looking at the long-term effects (at least they are calling it long term even though the study only lasts 6 yrs.) of soy formula vs. breast milk and cow's milk based formula. This one is being done by the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock and will follow the babies, as I mentioned, for 6 years.

As far as other forms of soy (other than formula), the only credible studies that I can find that cast any doubt on soy consumption are suggestive of correlations, but not necessarily causation (i.e. - people who ate soy isoflavones had higher instances of certain problems which may suggest that soy had something to do with it, but whether soy definitely caused the problem is uncertain without further study.) It should be noted that most of these studies looked at people who were fed large amounts of soy protein isolates, not actual soy foods such as tofu, tempeh, edamame, etc. Actually, I have yet to find any studies that show health problems related to consumption of actual soy foods and not processed derivatives of soy.

Likewise, for every study of the sort above, you will likely find dozens of other studies that show the opposite. Actually, I was unable to find even one example of a study published in a peer reviewed medical or health journal that found soy to increase the risk of anything. That's not to say that such studies don't exist; just that they are so rare that I can't find them! I sorted through hundreds of studies which found soy to reduce breast cancer, prostate cancer, blood pressure, and all kinds of other diseases.

I thought that I had found one that was published in the innocuous sounding "Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients" until I went to check out that publication & found that it prominently features the work of Mary Enig & Sally Fallon &, as always seems to be the case with publications featuring their work, is not peer-reviewed.

Some of these studies (showing soy to be beneficial) are very recent (June-July 2005) and well done. The evidence definitely weighs more heavily on the side of soy being a benefit to one's health rather than being a detriment.

[Fiona]

Thanks Christa, that's extremely helpful. The Arkansas study on infant milk sounds interesting as it includes breast milk as well as soy and cows milk.

You mentioned that some of the studies showing the benefits of soya have been well conducted. Have some of them been peer-reviewed? Thank you for your expertise!

Fiona

[vegma]

I found this interesting in The China Study chapter titled Turning Off Cancer. They found that even when cancer had been initiated, low protein diets kept it from progressing and high protein diets caused it to progress. Once it was progressing, they could turn it off or slow it down by replacing the high protein diet with the low protein diet. (I'm getting to the point eventually!:p ) The high protein diet that turned cancer on was animal protein - specifically cow's milk. They repeated the experiment with plant protein, once with wheat and once with SOY (this is how this commentary remotely fits in this thread!:D ) and these plant protein diets, fed at the same 20% level as the animal protein did not turn the cancer on. Super interesting stuff (to me)!

As Campbell said, his colleagues weren't ready to accept that protein could cause cancer and certainly not milk!

[Christa]

Fiona,

A couple of examples of recent peer reviewed studies on soy can be found here: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/5/1012),
this study shows the benefits of soy & other legumes in longevity (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15294666&query_hl=2), Breast Cancer Research and Treatment (http://www.springerlink.com/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=5e06e94de32648be8d37794df876 43c0&referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,13;journal,2,158;linkingpublication results,1:102860,1), Journal of the American College of Nutrition (shows soy's protection against many cancers) (http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/2/146S) .

There are many, many more and I would suggest searching the
National Library of Medicine's online database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed). If you put in "soy and cancer and 2005," or just "soy and 2005," or "soy and [topic of interest] and 2005," this will give you recent articles that were published on the topic. This database contains articles that were published pretty much exclusively in peer-reviewed medical or nutrition journals. You won't find Vegetarian Times or other lay person magazine articles there.

I mostly linked the abstracts b/c you can access them free.

[Fiona]

Thank you Christa.

Fiona

[alexis]

The claim from the WAPF folks is that people in Asian countries do not, in fact, eat much soy at all and that we have all been fooled into thinking that they eat much more than they do

As someone who's lived in an Asian country all her life, :rolleyes: !!!

[shai]

Someone actually told me that soy milk would deform my sons penis and make him grow vaginas.
Where do people come up with this stuff?

[annie7]

Bwahahaha!! That’s funny!!

[Zoesmama]

I dunno I have heard things but my dd was breastfed and supplemented with soy formula while I worked and hasn't had any health problems. IN FACT the only time she got sick was when we intrudced whole cows milk and then she got horrible diaper rash and we switched her back to soy milk since she was a year.

She will be 2 in 2 weeks and I've already started to replace some of her servings with almond milk she likes it. :) I was going to pick up so rice milk but I noticed the nutrient amounts were quite low in aseptic packages but in refrigerated ones were higher?? I dunno whats up with that being same brand and everything.


Anyway my dd hasn't had any problems at all with soy.