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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. Kristen, I like

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Speaker 1: some soy products. I stay away from soy milk just

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Speaker 1: because it kind of takes me out, because really it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like bean juice you think about it, not

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Speaker 1: only milk, it's juice j But I do like uh tofu.

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Speaker 1: I do cook with it makes ter fry um. But

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you're aware of the controversy surrounding

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Speaker 1: soy that if you read anything about uh consuming soy,

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Speaker 1: all of it conflicts with each other. Sometimes it can

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Speaker 1: prevent cancer, sometimes it causes cancer, just depending on what

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Speaker 1: study you're reading. It's very confusing. Sometimes it will lower

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Speaker 1: your sperm counts. Sometimes it'll treat your test schools just fine.

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Speaker 1: It's a grab bag of study findings. And to answer

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Speaker 1: your question, Caroline, no, until I think I had maybe

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Speaker 1: heard here and there little bits and pieces about uh

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Speaker 1: these soy health findings, but had not really taken a

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Speaker 1: close look at it until you brought this question up

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Speaker 1: and the reason why we wanted to talk about soy

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Speaker 1: today because we don't do that much around food, but

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Speaker 1: because the results are so these health results are so gendered,

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Speaker 1: and we have some surprising facts about how much soy

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Speaker 1: all of us are ingesting in the United States. And

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Speaker 1: I just want to go ahead and say at the

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Speaker 1: beginning that you know, it's different for everyone. Just everything

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Speaker 1: in moderation, whether you're eating cake or whether you're eating tofu,

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Speaker 1: should all be in moderation. And so while some studies

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Speaker 1: have shown that eating soy can lower cholesterol and the

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Speaker 1: risk for certain types of cancer, researchers aren't exactly sure,

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Speaker 1: and increased soy intake is better for everyone. So just

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Speaker 1: keep that in mind as you're listening. We're all different,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe increased or decreased soy intake could affect

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Speaker 1: people differently. Yeah, and I think by the end of

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Speaker 1: this podcast we will all be able to agree that

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Speaker 1: when it comes to UH science headlines, medical headlines, it

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Speaker 1: is important to take it with a grain of table salt, right,

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Speaker 1: iodized table salts. So let's let's get into this right,

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Speaker 1: we gotta we got a lot of ground to cover. Um,

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Speaker 1: soy contains a hormone called phyto estrogen. Actually it contains

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Speaker 1: to be more specific, iso flavonoids, which are metabolized in

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Speaker 1: our guts and become phyto estrogens. Now you can kind

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Speaker 1: of compare phyto estrogen to naturally occurring mammalian estrogen. But

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Speaker 1: um one author actually compared phyto estrogens to private jets.

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Speaker 1: Have you heard this this metaphor I have if you

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Speaker 1: if you imagine um our bodies as a giant airport,

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Speaker 1: I guess um estrogens are these jumbo jets that will

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Speaker 1: fly in and out and and enact all sorts of

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Speaker 1: behavioral and physiological and biological things in our bodies. UM

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Speaker 1: and phyto estrogens because they can bind to receptor sites

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Speaker 1: in um our bodily enzymes where normally estrogen would would

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Speaker 1: fill the gap. They doctors think that photo estrogens can

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Speaker 1: tinker with how um normal estrogen is released and absorbed

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Speaker 1: into our bodies. So while the estrogens might be the

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Speaker 1: jumbo jets, uh, the phyto estrogens would be more like

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Speaker 1: private planes just blocking up the runway. They're not as large.

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Speaker 1: They're typically described as very weak um estrogen mimics, but

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Speaker 1: nevertheless they do seem to have some kind of interaction

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Speaker 1: with um binding with those estrogen A. Right, they have

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Speaker 1: a phenomic ring which is a prerequisite for binding to

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Speaker 1: the estrogen receptor, and so this leads to the phyto

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Speaker 1: estrogens being able to act as estrogen agonists, in other words,

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Speaker 1: binding to a receptor and then triggering a response or

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Speaker 1: antagonists which blocks the binding of an agonist. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: all of this interaction with estrogen is the reason why

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Speaker 1: a lot of researchers since the early two thousands have

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Speaker 1: been looking into the health effects of regularly consuming a

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Speaker 1: lot of soy, because, as we'll get into later, we

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Speaker 1: eat a lot of soy. I don't care if you

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Speaker 1: don't make tofu stir fry like caroline or eat at

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Speaker 1: a mom a when you get your sushi, you're still

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Speaker 1: eating a lot of soy, right, just take my word

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Speaker 1: for it. So, the reason why we often hear about

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Speaker 1: soy and breast cancer is because there's a connection between

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Speaker 1: estrogen rates in a woman's body and her chances of

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Speaker 1: breast cancer. In a nutshell, the higher estrogen the body releases,

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Speaker 1: the higher the chances of developing breast cancer. So some

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Speaker 1: studies have said, well, if you eat all those soy

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Speaker 1: and these phyto estrogens are going in and blocking those

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Speaker 1: estrogen receptors, not allowing them to bind and release. Then

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Speaker 1: it could serve as a protective kind of barrier to

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Speaker 1: developing breast cancer. Yeah, and there are a couple of

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Speaker 1: studies that talk about this, several actually a bit to

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Speaker 1: the that I want to mention RUM. There's a study

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Speaker 1: in the Journal of Nutrition UM of Asian people in

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Speaker 1: Asian countries as opposed to Asian people who come to

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Speaker 1: the west here and right to the west. UM, they're

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Speaker 1: found to have much lower incidents of prostate and breast

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Speaker 1: cancer than the populations from western developed countries. They tend

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Speaker 1: to have diets that are lower in fat, higher in fiber,

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Speaker 1: and much higher in phytoestrogens from soy intake. UM. And

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Speaker 1: it's possible that this contributes this diet not only the

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Speaker 1: phyto estrogens and soy, but the low fat in the

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Speaker 1: high fiber contribute to fewer or reports of cancer. UM

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Speaker 1: and Dr Neil Bernard Um, who wrote an article for

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Speaker 1: the Huffington Post called Settling the Soy Controversy. UM talked

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Speaker 1: about a two thousand eight study by the University of

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Speaker 1: Southern California that found women who average a cup of

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Speaker 1: soy milk or about half a cup of tofu a

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Speaker 1: day have about a thirty percent less risk of developing

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Speaker 1: breast cancer. So it's sort of there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: conflicting information out there that the estrogens can get all

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Speaker 1: this stuff pumping in your body and cause problems. But

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Speaker 1: then they're all also these studies that point out, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it could benefit you, it could help you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And if we look at menopause for instance, UM, there

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Speaker 1: have been studies suggesting that soy products for women who

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Speaker 1: don't want to go the hormonal route as they go

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Speaker 1: through menopause. Uh, some have suggested that soy products could

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Speaker 1: be an effective substitute for treating the symptoms of menopause. Then,

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Speaker 1: come around to August of this year, the New York

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Speaker 1: Times reports and to study a double blind study UM

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Speaker 1: that found that women in the soy group had ingested

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Speaker 1: about twenty times as much soy as those taking the placebo,

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Speaker 1: and yet the researchers found no significant differences in bone density,

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Speaker 1: night sweats, insomnia, loss of libido, vaginal dryness, hot flashes,

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Speaker 1: and especially with the hot flashes, there were other studies

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Speaker 1: that we had seen previously that it said, hey, women

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Speaker 1: going through menopause experiencing hot flashes, guzzle out soy milk,

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Speaker 1: You'll be fine, right, But a lot of those studies

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Speaker 1: I noticed were from the midst of late nineties. So

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Speaker 1: it seems that we've made we we like I've been

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Speaker 1: researching those, you know, and contributing to the signing out

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Speaker 1: lab community. I mean, we do wear labcats when we

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Speaker 1: record this podcast, by the way. Um yeah, it seems

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Speaker 1: like the trend in more recent research is that, um,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of seems to be contradicting earlier research. So now,

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Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it can protect us against breast cancer,

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Speaker 1: whereas before, well I don't know, it could cause breast cancer.

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Speaker 1: And now it seems to be saying, oh, sorry, menopause,

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Speaker 1: the ladies, you're out of luck. Yeah, I mean cancer

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Speaker 1: will happen, menopause will happen, death eventually after all of that, Uh,

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Speaker 1: good luck. And it does seem like, yeah, you go

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Speaker 1: from the alarmist headlines to uh, kind of a tapering off.

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Speaker 1: And when we get into men's health, when it comes

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Speaker 1: to soy similar kinds of things, Uh, men's health magazine

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Speaker 1: actually did an article a few years ago on on

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Speaker 1: soys effects in the male body, and who wow, they

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Speaker 1: were terrified of soy. Yeah. They started out by discussing

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Speaker 1: cases of kind of comacia um in in men. Basically

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Speaker 1: these men who had developed abnormal breast tissue and loan behold,

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Speaker 1: they were drinking a ton of soy milk and we're

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Speaker 1: taking dietary supplements with soy milk in it, and again

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Speaker 1: and again throughout this article it was, um, kind of

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Speaker 1: all these anecdotal examples, study examples of how these phyto estrogens,

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Speaker 1: as you might imagine, could be having this these physiologically

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Speaker 1: feminizing effects on men. And so their big headline was

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Speaker 1: you know, oh no, soy right, soy sorry? I think

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Speaker 1: was really um, well, you know, going back to something

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, and and a doctor points this out too,

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Speaker 1: it's all very individual. I mean, the the man that

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Speaker 1: they were talking to who experienced all this breast growth

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Speaker 1: and breast tenderness. Um, it's that's not going to happen

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Speaker 1: for all men. Just because you're a man and you

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Speaker 1: like tofu and ed a mom a and drinking soy milk,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're going to have abnormal breast development,

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Speaker 1: and a doctor in the article said, the problem is

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Speaker 1: when a thing like soy is touted as this wonderful

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Speaker 1: panacea for health, and people end up going overboard on it.

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Speaker 1: So it's the same thing. It might not affect you

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Speaker 1: the same way it affect your friends, but you also

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Speaker 1: don't want to start chugging soy milk. UM. The man

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Speaker 1: in the article uh It talked about how after his

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Speaker 1: wife passed away, he was looking to have a healthy

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Speaker 1: diet because he didn't have someone cooking for him anymore,

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Speaker 1: and so he was looking to do the right thing

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Speaker 1: for his body and he ended up just ingesting so

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Speaker 1: much of it that it had negative effects. UM. And

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Speaker 1: along with that, you know, we have the breast tissue development.

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Speaker 1: And then um, some studies finding a connection between soy

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Speaker 1: intake and lowered sperm count and men. And also there

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Speaker 1: was one um a ten percent higher incidents of a

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Speaker 1: rectile dysfunction in Chinese men who were consuming high amounts

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Speaker 1: of soy compared to Americans who avoided it. So again,

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Speaker 1: there were all of these headlines and Scientific American and

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Speaker 1: other publications saying, well, you know, maybe guys shouldn't shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be eating all of this, uh this soy either. But again,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about all of the different

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Speaker 1: lifestyle factors that go into an individual's health outlook, isolating

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Speaker 1: it down to one particular nutrient that has now been

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Speaker 1: found to have just a grab bag of effects and

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Speaker 1: various people seems a little sketchy, right. Um. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: Speaking of Scientific American a two thousand nine article UM

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Speaker 1: said that animal studies using soy suggested eating large amounts

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Speaker 1: of estrogenic compounds such as the isoflavones we mentioned um

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Speaker 1: might reduce fertility, trigger premature puberty, disrupt development of fetuses

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Speaker 1: and children. Um. Although they follow this up by saying

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Speaker 1: long term, more, long term studies are needed. Um. So

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Speaker 1: it just sounds like, oh my god, soy has all

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Speaker 1: these terrible effects. But a lot of study authors and

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Speaker 1: journalists out there are saying that so much of this

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Speaker 1: evidence is just inconclusive, that more studies need to be done.

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Speaker 1: Just like we said at one point that I wanted

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Speaker 1: to make about all these studies that we should also

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Speaker 1: keep in mind, um is Caroline you mentioned that, um,

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Speaker 1: some of these studies used rats like rodents to to

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Speaker 1: test UM the effects of soy, which is not uncommon

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Speaker 1: and obviously in in medical research rights are UM are

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Speaker 1: very necessary for that. But just because UM it's it's

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Speaker 1: sometimes a big leap to extrapolate effects and erodents to say,

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Speaker 1: adult humans. Just something else to keep in mind, right.

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Speaker 1: The Journal of Nutrition in broke down the potential roles

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Speaker 1: of phyto estrogens, and I think it illustrates perfectly how

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Speaker 1: unclear some research can be UM. The authors described phyto

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Speaker 1: estrogens as estrogen agonists whose actions could prove beneficial to

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Speaker 1: menapausal women like we talked about, but might contribute to carcinogenesis.

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Speaker 1: They also describe them as anti estrogens and anti proliferative

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Speaker 1: agents that could help to prevent estrogen dependent carcinoma by

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Speaker 1: antagonizing estrogen again like we talked about, but you could

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Speaker 1: also contribute to infertility by suppressing normal reproductive function. And last,

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Speaker 1: but not least, phito estrogens offer protection against environmental estrogens

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Speaker 1: by altering the steroid response threshold, but they could also

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Speaker 1: be considered developmental toxins that could disrupt sexual differentiation by

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Speaker 1: altering sex specific patterns of development. So naturally that leads

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Speaker 1: people to worry about infants drinking soy formula, although um

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Speaker 1: many pediatric UH authorities in the pediatric community have come

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Speaker 1: out and said no, I mean, it's it's fine, and

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Speaker 1: not to mention all of the hormone disrupting chemicals that

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Speaker 1: are not in our foods. So we are um getting

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Speaker 1: into our bodies through um chemicals in cleaning products and

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Speaker 1: bathroom products, plastic, plastic and stuff like that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's uh, it's it's a dangerous world

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Speaker 1: out there. Gosh golli. Um. But here's here's the thing

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Speaker 1: about soy and this was to underscore or one reason

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Speaker 1: why it is important to educate ourselves about it. Because,

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Speaker 1: like I said, it does not matter if you don't

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Speaker 1: like the tofu, if you don't like the damami of

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Speaker 1: the soy milk, the bean juice as you call it.

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Speaker 1: Because as Michael Pollen, the author of In Defensive Food

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Speaker 1: and the Omnivores Dilemma, points out, he says that Americans

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Speaker 1: are eating even more soy products than ever before, more

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Speaker 1: than the Japanese or the Chinese do, because of subsidies

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Speaker 1: on these huge soy bean farms in American and South

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Speaker 1: American farms. That is basically Uh, the food industry is

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Speaker 1: having to put into so many of the manufactured, factured

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Speaker 1: products in refrigerators and on our tables, in the same

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Speaker 1: way that high fructose corn syrup isn't so much of

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Speaker 1: the food we eat today as well. Yeah. So, speaking

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Speaker 1: of groups of people who have a lot of soy

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Speaker 1: in their diet, um one study focused on elderly men

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Speaker 1: and women in Indonesia who pursue to believe in consuming

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Speaker 1: soy and phito estrogens for years. The assumption was that

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Speaker 1: they'd be super healthy and have great memories. They would

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Speaker 1: have had reaped all these benefits from eating a soy

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Speaker 1: heavy diet, and participants over age sixty eight who regularly

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Speaker 1: dementia and memory impairment as those consuming a more moderate amount,

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Speaker 1: And that led researchers to think, well, okay, let's focus

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Speaker 1: then on just hormones and hormone like products in the elderly,

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Speaker 1: so you know, different different effects, and again you have

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Speaker 1: to think of correlation causation. Surely, you know, could it

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Speaker 1: could it really be the tofu that is causing dimension

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Speaker 1: or is it simply a corollary factor? And Michael pollen

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Speaker 1: Um brings this up. Uh you know, he points out

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Speaker 1: that basically, like, yeah, these phido estrogen may have a

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Speaker 1: bad effect, they might have a good effect for that reason.

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Speaker 1: At least at the time that he was writing this,

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Speaker 1: I think this was a couple of years ago. Um,

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Speaker 1: he was saying that the FDA has declined to grant

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Speaker 1: the grass or generally regarded as safe status two. Soy

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Speaker 1: isoflavones used as a food additive. That doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: it's banned from from being in there. They just don't

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Speaker 1: have that, um, that general stamp of approval. And then

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Speaker 1: he goes on to site a senior scientist at the

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Speaker 1: FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research who said the confidence

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Speaker 1: that soy products are safe is clearly based more on

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Speaker 1: belief than hard data. So, um, what's the what's the

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Speaker 1: net net of all of these all of these studies,

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Speaker 1: all this research on soy that is really in so

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Speaker 1: much of what we eat, especially processed food. I think

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Speaker 1: I think a good takeaway is that, I mean not

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Speaker 1: to not to get all lectury here, but eat a

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Speaker 1: balanced diet. I mean, they won one. One article I

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Speaker 1: was reading was talking about how if you're a vegetarian.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you only have to eat soy products

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Speaker 1: all day long all the time. You know, there's the

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Speaker 1: Mediterranean diet, which is a lot of pasta, fresh vegetables, beans, fruits,

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Speaker 1: olive oil that has great benefits. But it's you know,

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Speaker 1: don't totally cut tofu and soy products out of your diet.

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Speaker 1: It's all just a matter of balance. Yeah, and uh

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Speaker 1: to summ up. Going back again to paullen Um, one

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Speaker 1: of like his his famous lines is I think it's

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Speaker 1: eat food mostly vegetables in moderation. And there you go.

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Speaker 1: So anyone out there there who has some insight on

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Speaker 1: this soy issue and like the sort of the gendered

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Speaker 1: effects health effects of soy, please let us know. Our

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Speaker 1: email addresses Moms Stuff and how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And we got a couple of emails here for you, Kristen.

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Speaker 1: This one is from Jacqueline. She says, my sisters and

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Speaker 1: I participated in one baby pageant when we when we

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Speaker 1: were less than a year old. A local store donated

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Speaker 1: our outfits. Our mom isn't normally the type of person

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Speaker 1: to put her children in pageants, but her friends and

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Speaker 1: family used her into it the reason we are a

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Speaker 1: set of identical triplets. My family thought it would be

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Speaker 1: hilarious to enroll three matching babies. We didn't place, which

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Speaker 1: is probably a good thing. I really think the child

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Speaker 1: beauty pageant thing is a little sick. She goes on

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Speaker 1: to talk about the roller Derby podcast and she said

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Speaker 1: that her sister, she and her sister joined a local

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Speaker 1: derby team, Little City roller Girls. I shared your podcast

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Speaker 1: with the team and they loved it. Whenever we drive

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Speaker 1: to away bouts, we listened to you on the road.

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Speaker 1: She says she is a super fan and listens to

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Speaker 1: every episode. Thanks Jacqueline, Thank you Jacqueline. Um and here

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Speaker 1: I have an email from Marianna and this is a

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Speaker 1: little bit of her a critique of our episode about

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Speaker 1: pregnancy tests. We were talking about the self exam self

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Speaker 1: pregnancy tests with the with the speculum yea, and she says, well,

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Speaker 1: I disagree with the idea that pregnant that pregnancy tests

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Speaker 1: are anti feminists. I do strongly believe that people in general,

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Speaker 1: and women in particular, are far too distant from their

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Speaker 1: own bodies. We know what's going on in our computers

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Speaker 1: and our cars and our phones, but we rarely look

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Speaker 1: at or into our own body. I think you should

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Speaker 1: both be careful about communicating positive messages about women's bodies,

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Speaker 1: including the quote unquote scary genital area. I think the

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Speaker 1: show does a lot to help women become aware of

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Speaker 1: their bodies, but it would be good to hear that

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Speaker 1: the hosts are at least open to the idea of

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Speaker 1: taking a look at your vagina now and then, even

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Speaker 1: if they don't actually do it themselves. I will have

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Speaker 1: you know, I know what my vagina looks like. I

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Speaker 1: have looked at it in a mirror. I am very

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Speaker 1: familiar with us, I assure you. And on that note,

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Speaker 1: our email address is mom Stuff and how Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us over on Facebook

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Speaker 1: and at Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts, and you can

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Speaker 1: look at our blog read it when I like during

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Speaker 1: the week stuff Mom Never told you at how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Be sure to check out our new

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Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Staff Work

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Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities

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