Large ten year study on the effects of soy, isovlavone, and phytoestrogens on men and testosterone

[SwampNut]

Long ago, a bunch of concerns were raised about phytoestrogens and that they could be "castrating" men.  The basic premise is that they chemically look similar to female hormones.  This is commonly used to deliver drugs, by making them look like something else.  Or it can also be a drug that looks like something and blocks the uptake of the real thing (SSRIs for example, caffeine too).  In this case it turns out that not only does soy not negatively affect men, the blocking effect can keep estrogen out of cells.  This may be related to one of soy's many benefits in women (I'm suggesting that on my own, it's not part of this study).

 

My best guess is that the meat industries threw this out there along with the protein fallacy to protect themselves.  They are the largest consumer of soy, as feed.  They would much rather have that to themselves at the lowest price, process it into less healthy and less nutritious meat, then sell it at a markup.  Soy is a fantastic addition to a whole food diet and has a great deal of benefits on its own, aside from pretending to be meat.  Air fried soy cubes are damn good in a lot of things.  Recently a friend who is a recovering meat addict fed me some strips she'd made and marinated, then air toasted, just alone.  That was fucking great.  I have to admit I never thought of just making it as a standalone snack.

 

I'll also admit that I had originally fallen for the testosterone bullshit, but then it started to look really fishy.  So for the last few years I've been artificially limiting my soy intake for no reason.  Though with new evidence, I've been using it a bit more.

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890623820302926

 

TT and FT levels were measured in 1753 and 752 men, respectively; E2 and E1 levels were measured in 1000 and 239 men, respectively and SHBG was measured in 967 men. The youngest men were aged 18 years [55,84] and the oldest participants were aged 81 years [77]. Several studies included more than one experimental arm, for example a SPC arm and a SPI arm, thus the total number of groups included in analyses exceeded the total number of studies. Some studies involved multiple quantities of soy, or soy in different forms. For example, both Swart et al. [70] and Hamilton- Reeves et al. [57] included a SPI with added isoflavones group and a SPI alone group. Kalman et al. [60] included a SPI group and a SPC group and the study by Kumar et al. [63] included 3 groups who consumed supplements providing different amounts of isoflavones. Most studies that did not intervene with supplements used SPI or SPC, several studies used other forms including red clover [68,80], soymilk/yogurt [66,76], tofu [75] or soybeans [92].

3.1. Effect of soy and isoflavone exposure on circulating reproductive hormone concentrations

As shown in Table 2, there were no significant effects of soy or isoflavone exposure on any of the hormones considered regardless of whether the data were analyzed using statistical approach A) comparison of change in the treatment versus the control arms of parallel/controlled and crossover trials or change over time in all active arms.

 

 

Here's a short article on some of the benefits:

 

https://www.healthline.com/health/phytoestrogens#benefits

 

 

 

 

[SwampNut]

A different study concurs with the above, and also finds that soy consumption significantly reduces the risk of prostate cancer for American men.  The bottom line is to include more soy in your diet.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793268/

 

 Neither soy food intake nor circulating isoflavones were associated with advanced PCa risk, although very few studies currently exist to examine potential associations. Combined, this evidence from observational studies shows a statistically significant association between soy consumption and decreased PCa risk. Further studies are required to support soy consumption as a prophylactic dietary approach to reduce PCa carcinogenesis.

 

Articles reporting total soy intake and PCa risk had a pooled RR of 0.61 (95% CI: 0.45–0.82, p = 0.001) for case-control studies and a pooled RR of 0.90 (95% CI: 0.82–0.99, p = 0.022) for cohort and NCC studies. Studies conducted in both North America (p = 0.009) and Europe (p = 0.021) were significantly associated with a reduced PCa risk, whereas studies conducted in Asia (p = 0.064) were not. A complete subgroup analysis can be found in Table 2. Cumulative meta-analyses first demonstrated that soy food intake was significantly associated with the reduced risk of PCa in 1998 and has remained significant over time, and with the inclusion of additional studies within the field (Figure A3).

[superhawk996]

On 10/26/2021 at 10:34 AM, SwampNut said:

the blocking effect can keep estrogen out of cells.  This may be related to one of soy's many benefits in women (I'm suggesting that on my own, it's not part of this study).

How much do they have to eat to become good drivers?

[SwampNut]

Huh, it is absolutely factual that soy consumption correlates with bad driving.