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Soy: The Hormone Destroyer

By Han Ayden

Once touted as the ultimate health food, soy is now coming under intense scrutiny for its purported health benefits. In fact, recent research suggests that soy consumption could be detrimental to our health, owing to the anti-nutrients it contains. These anti-nutrients interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption, thereby reducing the amount of nutrients available for assimilation into our bodies. Soy foods deprive us of nutrients essential for optimum health and well-being.

For those who chug down soy shakes as a post- workout drink, remember that soy protein isolate has vastly inferior absorption and bioavailability rates, compared to whey and casein protein. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to avoid soy as it is added to a vast array of foods in addition to being consumed on its own. Soy products include soy milk, soy ice cream, soy pasta, textured vegetable protein ('mock-meat'), tofu and fermented soy products such as miso and tempeh.

Soy foods are usually highly processed despite being marketed as a natural, high-protein, plant-based alternative to animal protein.

However, soy foods also contain high levels of plant estrogen, called isoflavones, with similar effects to the female hormone estrogen. This is particularly detrimental to the health of males as it lowers their level of testosterone, resulting in a feminizing effect on masculine features, as well as lower sperm counts and decreased sex drives.

The consumption of soy products has also been linked to cases of hyperthyroidism, a condition where the thyroid glands overproduce hormones which are then secreted into the bloodstream at unhealthy levels, causing a host of problems such as fatigue, insomnia, appetite loss and reproductive problems. Despite being hailed as a female-friendly miracle food due to its ability to mimic the effects of estrogen, soy has also been linked to depression and menstrual irregularities in women. So much for it being a women's health food, huh!

While it is a well-documented fact that soy interferes with the sexual development of male infants, its effects on female babies have been kept hidden from most people, under the impression that it is greatly beneficial to females of all ages. The ugly truth is that increased rates of precocious puberty in girls have also been linked to copious soy consumption.

Why then has a plethora of misinformation entered our collective consciousness in order to transform a potentially harmful food into a 'miracle' food? One has to consider the astronomical sums of money pumped into the huge and wildly successful campaigns launched in order to promote and market soy as a health food wonder. The soy lobby too has funded research on soy's health benefits while suppressing information on its potentially negative aspects.

Moreover, soybean is also extremely cheap and thus, makes great fillers in a variety of foods, saving costs and increasing profits. My advice to you? Limit your consumption of soy to fermented soy products as the fermentation process destroys the anti-nutrients found in them. If possible, dump soy. There are way better nutritious alternatives to soy protein out there.

About the Author:

Han Ayden is a certified personal trainer and a body transformation specialist located in Singapore. His website is http://www.physiquemakeover.com