Rense: Dark Side of Soy- America's Favorite Health Food

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The DARK Side Of Soy - America's

Favorite 'Health' Food

By Kaayla T. Daniel

2-26-7

 

http://rense.com/general75/fav.htm

 

Over the past decade, soy foods have become America's favorite

health food. Newspapers, magazines, and best-selling health writers

have proclaimed the " joy of soy " and promoted the belief that soy

food is the key to disease prevention and maximum longevity.

The possibility that an inexpensive plant food could prevent heart

disease, fight cancer, fan away hot flashes, and build strong bodies

in far more than 12 ways is seductive. The truth, unfortunately, is

far more complex. Soy foods come in a variety of forms, including

many heavily processed modern products. Even good forms of soy foods

must be eaten sparingly-the way they have been eaten traditionally

in Asia. Most important, many respected scientists have issued

warnings stating that the possible benefits of eating soy should be

weighed against the proven risks. Indeed, thousands of studies link

soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune-system breakdown,

thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and

infertility-even cancer and heart disease.

 

Americans rarely hear anything negative about soy. Thanks to the

shrewd public relations campaigns waged by Archer Daniels Midland

(ADM), Protein Technologies International (PTI), the American

Soybean Association, and other soy interests, as well as the Food

and Drug Administration's (FDA) 1999 approval of the health claim

that soy protein lowers cholesterol, soy maintains a " healthy "

image.

 

This article is written for parents who need to know the risks of

feeding soy formula to infants, or soy milk and other soy foods to

growing children. It's designed for prospective mothers and fathers

who need to know the links between soy foods, infertility, and birth

defects. Finally, it will serve anyone considering soy as a

preventive for menopausal symptoms, osteoporosis, cancer, heart

disease, or other ills.

 

How Much Soy Do Asians Really Eat?

Those who dare to question the benefits of soy tend to receive one

stock answer: Soy foods couldn't possibly have a downside because

Asians eat large quantities of soy every day and consequently remain

free of most western diseases. In fact, the people of China, Japan,

and other countries in Asia eat very little soy. The soy industry's

own figures show that soy consumption in China, Indonesia, Korea,

Japan, and Taiwan ranges from 9.3 to 36 grams per day.1 That's grams

of soy food, not grams of soy protein alone. Compare this with a cup

of tofu (252 grams) or soy milk (240 grams).2 Many Americans today

think nothing of consuming a cup of tofu, a couple glasses of soy

milk, handfuls of soy nuts, soy " energy bars, " and veggie burgers.

Infants on soy formula receive the most of all, both in quantity and

in proportion to body weight.

 

In short, there is no historical precedent for eating the large

amounts of soy food now being consumed by infants fed soy formula

and vegetarians who favor soy as their main source of protein, or

for the large amounts of soy being recommended by Dr. Andrew Weil,

Dr. Christiane Northrup, and many other popular health experts.

What's more, the rural poor in China have never seen-let alone

feasted on-soy sausages, chili made with Textured Vegetable Protein

(TVP), tofu cheesecake, packaged soy milk, soy " energy bars, " or

other newfangled soy products that have infiltrated the American

marketplace.

 

The Right Stuff

The ancient Chinese honored the soybean with the name " the yellow

jewel " but used it as " green manure " -a cover crop plowed under to

enrich the soil. Soy did not become human food until late in the

Chou Dynasty (1134-246 B.C.), when the Chinese developed a

fermentation process to make soybean paste, best known today by its

Japanese name, miso.3 Soy sauce-the natural type sold under the

Japanese name shoyu-began as the liquid poured off during the

production of miso. Two other popular fermented soy foods, natto and

tempeh, entered the food supply around 1000 A.D. or later in Japan

and Indonesia, respectively.

 

Tofu came after miso. Legend has it that, in 164 B.C., Lord Liu An

of Huai-nan, China-a renowned alchemist, meditator, and ruler-

discovered that a purée of cooked soybeans could be precipitated

with nigari (a form of magnesium chloride found in seawater) into

solid cakes, called tofu. In Japan, as in China, tofu was rarely

served as a main course anywhere except in monasteries. Its most

popular use was-and is-as a few bland little blocks in miso soup or

fish stock.

 

The Chinese almost never ate boiled or baked soybeans or cooked with

soy flour except in times of famine. Modern soy products such as soy

protein isolate (SPI), TVP, soy-protein concentrate, and other soy-

protein products made using high-tech industrial processes, were

unknown in Asia until after World War II.4

 

Contrary to popular belief, neither soy milk nor soy infant formula

is traditional in Asia. Soy milk originated as a byproduct of the

process of making tofu; the earliest reference to it as a beverage

appeared in 1866.5 By the 1920s and 1930s, it was popular in Asia as

an occasional drink served to the elderly.6-8 The first person to

manufacture soy milk in China was actually an American-Harry Miller,

a Seventh Day Adventist physician and missionary.9

 

The first soy infant formulas in China were developed in the 1930s

and have never been widely used.10-14 Today, babies in Asia are

almost always breastfed for at least the first six months, then

switched to a dairy-based infant formula. Orphans and others who

cannot be breastfed by a wet nurse are fed from birth on dairy

formulas.15

 

Claims that soybeans have been a major part of the Asian diet for

more than 3,000 years, or from " time immemorial, " are simply not

true.

 

Processing Matters

Soy in the West has been a product of the industrial revolution-an

opportunity for technologists to develop cheap meat substitutes, to

find clever new ways to hide soy in familiar food products, to

formulate soy-based pharmaceuticals, and to develop a renewable,

plant-based resource that could replace petroleum-based plastics and

fuels.

 

For years, the soy protein left over from soy-oil extraction went to

animals and poultry. Now that food scientists have discovered

inexpensive ways to improve or disguise the color, flavor, " bite

characteristics, " and " mouth feel " of soy protein-based products,

soy is being aggressively marketed as a " people feed. " Although the

newer refining techniques yield blander, purer soy proteins than

the " beany, " hard-to-cover-up flavors of the past, the main reason

that soy foods now taste and look better is the lavish use of

unhealthy additives such as sugar and other sweeteners, salt,

artificial flavorings, colors, and monosodium glutamate (MSG).

 

Soy now lurks in nearly 60 percent of the foods sold in supermarkets

and natural food stores. Much of this is " hidden " in products where

it wouldn't ordinarily be expected, such as fast-food burgers and

Bumblebee canned tuna. Soy is also a key ingredient in ersatz

products with names like Soysage, Not Dogs, Fakin Bakin, Sham Ham,

and TofuRella, which have been named after and made to look like the

familiar meat and diary products they are intended to replace.

There's nothing natural about these modern soy protein products.

Textured soy protein, for example, is made by forcing defatted soy

flour through a machine called an extruder under conditions of such

extreme heat and pressure that the very structure of the soy protein

is changed. Production differs little from the extrusion technology

used to produce starch-based packing materials, fiber-based

industrial products, and plastic toy parts, bowls, and plates.16

 

The process of making soy protein isolate (SPI) begins with defatted

soybean meal, which is mixed with a caustic alkaline solution to

remove the fiber, then washed in an acid solution to precipitate out

the protein. The protein curds are then dipped into another alkaline

solution and spray-dried at extremely high temperatures. SPI is then

often spun into protein fibers using technology borrowed from the

textile industry. These refining processes remove " off

flavors, " " beany " tastes, and some of the worst flatulence-producing

components. They improve digestibility, but vitamin, mineral, and

protein quality are sacrificed, and levels of carcinogens such as

nitrosamines are increased.17-22 SPIs appear in so many products

that consumers would never guess that the Federation of American

Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) decreed in 1979 that the

only safe use for SPIs was for sealers for cardboard packages.23

 

Antinutrients and Toxins in Soy

Scientists who have studied the use of soy protein in animal feeds

over the years have discovered a number of components in soy that

cause poor growth, digestive distress, and other health problems.24-

27 To list just a few of these: Protease inhibitors interfere with

protein digestion and have caused malnutrition, poor growth,

digestive distress, and pancreatitis.28 Phytates block mineral

absorption, causing zinc, iron, and calcium deficiencies.29-34

Lectins and saponins have caused leaky gut and other

gastrointestinal and immune problems.35-36 Oxalates-surprisingly

high in soy-may cause problems for people prone to kidney stones and

women suffering from vulvodynia, a painful condition marked by

burning, stinging, and itching of the external genitalia.37, 38

Finally, oligosaccharides give soy its notorious reputation as a gas

producer. Although these are present in all beans, soy is such a

powerful " musical fruit " that the soy industry has identified " the

flatulence factor " as a major obstacle that must be overcome for soy

to achieve full consumer acceptance.39, 40

 

Apologists for soy dismiss such claims, saying that food processing

and home cooking remove most of these antinutrients. In fact, modern

processing removes most of them, but not all. The levels of heat and

pressure needed to remove all protease inhibitors, for example,

severely damage soy protein and make it harder to digest. The trick

is to eliminate the most antinutrients while doing the least damage

to the soy protein. Success varies widely from batch to batch.41-44

For years, the soy industry tried to improve the quality of animal

feeds by finding better ways to get rid of these undesirable

antinutrients. Having failed, they routinely supplement animal feeds

heavily with vitamins, minerals, and methionine, a sulfur-containing

amino acid that is low in soy. Even so, makers of animal chows are

still limited in the amount of soy they can add without causing

growth and fertility problems. Food processors making soy-protein

products for people may or may not add these supplements. Generally,

calcium and vitamin D are added to soy milk so it can compete with

dairy products.

 

Today, the soy industry has switched tactics-from trying to remove

unwanted antinutrients to trying to convince people that they are

actually a good thing. Protease inhibitors, saponins, and lectins

are being touted as curers of cancer or lowerers of cholesterol,

while phytates are being recommended for their ability to remove

toxic minerals such as cadmium and excess iron from the body.45-51

Although some of these uses look promising, it is important to note

that researchers are not achieving these successes using regular soy

foods. Most take carefully extracted components and administer them

in carefully measured and monitored pharmaceutical doses. News

headlines to the contrary, there is no reason to think that just

eating a lot of soy foods will do the trick.

 

Soy Allergens

Soy is one of the top eight allergens that cause immediate

hypersensitivity reactions such as coughing, sneezing, runny nose,

hives, diarrhea, difficulty swallowing, and anaphylactic shock.

Delayed allergic responses are even more common and occur anywhere

from several hours to several days after the food is eaten. These

have been linked to sleep disturbances, bedwetting, sinus and ear

infections, crankiness, joint paint, chronic fatigue,

gastrointestinal woes, and other mysterious symptoms.52, 53

Soy allergies are on the rise for three reasons: the growing use of

soy infant formula (now 20 to 25 percent of the formula market), the

increase in soy-containing foods in grocery stores, the possibility

of the greater allergenicity of genetically modified soybeans.54

Although severe reactions to soy are rare compared to reactions to

peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish, soy has been underestimated

as a cause of food anaphylaxis. Recently, after a young girl in

Sweden suffered an asthma attack and died after eating a hamburger

that contained only 2.2 percent soy protein, Swedish researchers

looked into a possible soybean connection. They concluded that the

soy-in-the-hamburger case was not a fluke, and that minute amounts

of soy " hidden " in regular food had caused four of the total of five

deaths caused by allergic reactions in Sweden between 1993 and 1996.

Of the children who suffered fatal attacks, all had been able to eat

soy without any adverse reactions right up until the dinner that

caused their deaths.55 According to the Swedish Ministry of Health

and Social Affairs, children at highest risk are those who suffer

from peanut allergies and asthma; parents of such children should

make every effort to eliminate all soy from their children's

diets.56

 

Soy and the Thyroid: A Pain in the Neck

More than 70 years of human, animal, and laboratory studies show

that soybeans put the thyroid at risk. The chief culprits are the

plant hormones in soy known as phytoestrogens or isoflavones.57-59

The United Kingdom's Committee on Toxicology has identified several

populations at special risk: infants on soy formula, vegans who use

soy as their principal meat and dairy replacements, and men and

women who self-medicate with soy foods and/or isoflavone supplements

in an attempt to prevent or reverse menopausal symptoms, cancer, or

heart disease.60

 

Infants with congenital hypothyroidism need 18 to 25 percent higher

doses of thyroxine drug than usual if they are bottle-fed with soy

formula.61 Likewise, adults who boost their thyroid with drugs such

as Synthroid while also eating thyroid-inhibiting foods such as soy

put extreme stress on their thyroids. Toxicologist Michael

Fitzpatrick, PhD, points out that this is the way that researchers

induce thyroid cancers in laboratory animals.62

 

Soy and Reproduction: Breeding Discontent

Scientists have known since the mid-1940s that phytoestrogens can

impair fertility. Fertility problems in cows, sheep, rabbits,

cheetahs, guinea pigs, birds, and mice have all been reported.63, 64

Although scientists discovered only recently that soy lowers

testosterone levels,65 tofu has traditionally been used in Buddhist

monasteries to decrease the libido, and by Japanese women to punish

straying husbands. Humans and animals appear to be the most

vulnerable to the effects of soy estrogens prenatally, during

infancy and puberty, during pregnancy and lactation, and during the

hormonal shifts of menopause. Of all these groups, infants on soy

formula are at the highest risk because of their small size and

developmental phase, and because formula is their main source of

nutrient.66, 67

 

A crucial time for the programming of the human reproduction system

is right after birth-the very time when bottles of soy formula are

given to many non-breastfed babies. Normally during this period, the

body surges with natural estrogens, testosterones, and other

hormones that are meant to program the baby's reproductive

development from infancy through puberty and into adulthood. For

infants on soy formula, this programming may be interrupted.68-70

Male infants experience a testosterone surge during the first few

months of life and produce androgens in amounts equal to those of

adult men. So much testosterone at such a tender age is needed to

program the body for puberty, the time when a male's sex organs

should develop and he should begin to express male characteristics

such as facial and pubic hair and a deep voice. If receptor sites

intended for the hormone testosterone are occupied by soy estrogens,

however, appropriate development may never take place.71-74 To date,

most of the evidence damning soy formula can be found only in animal

studies, because investigations in which humans' sex hormone levels

are lowered experimentally cannot ethically be done. However, in the

years since soy formula has been in the marketplace, parents and

pediatricians have reported growing numbers of boys whose physical

maturation is either delayed or does not occur at all. Breasts,

underdeveloped gonads, undescended testicles (cryptorchidism), and

steroid insufficiencies are increasingly common. Sperm counts are

also falling.75-79

 

Soy formula is bad news for girls as well. Natural estrogen levels

approximately double during the first month of life, then decline

and remain at low levels until puberty. With increased estrogens in

the environment in the diet, an alarming number of girls are

entering puberty much earlier than normal.80-82 One percent of girls

now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or pubic hair,

before the age of three. By the age of eight, 14.7 percent of

Caucasian girls and 48.3 percent of African American girls had one

or both of these characteristics.83 The fact that blacks experience

earlier puberties than whites is not a racial difference but a

recent phenomenon.84, 85

 

Most experts blame this epidemic of " precocious puberty " on

environmental estrogens from plastics, pesticides, commercial meats,

etc., but some pediatric endocrinologists believe that soy is a

contributor.86 Of all the estrogens found in the environment, soy is

the likeliest explanation of why African American girls reach

puberty so quickly. Since its establishment in 1974, the federal

government's Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program has provided

free infant formula to teenage and other low-income mothers while

failing to encourage breastfeeding. Because of perceived or real

lactose intolerance, black babies are much more likely to receive

soy formula than Caucasian babies.

 

Early maturation in girls heralds reproductive problems later in

life, including amenorrhea (failure to menstruate), anovulatory

cycles (cycles in which no egg is released), impaired follicular

development (follicles failing to mature and develop into healthy

eggs), erratic hormonal surges, and other problems associated with

infertility. Because the mammary glands depend on estrogen for their

development and functioning, the presence of soy estrogens at a

susceptible time might predispose girls to breast cancer, another

condition that is on the rise and definitively linked to early

puberty.87

 

Recently, a team of researchers headed by Brian L. Strom, MD,

studied the use of soy formula and its long-term impact on

reproductive health. They announced only one adverse finding:

longer, more painful menstrual periods among women who'd been fed

soy formula in infancy.88 Dr. Strom's conclusion that the results

were " reassuring " made newspaper headlines all over the world,

though the data in the body of the report were anything but. Indeed,

data left out of the headlines and buried in the report revealed

higher incidences of allergies and asthma, and higher rates of

cervical cancer, polycystic ovarian syndrome, blocked fallopian

tubes, and pelvic inflammatory disease.89 Although thyroid damage

from soy formula has been the principal concern of critics for

decades, the researchers excluded thyroid function as a subject for

study. Not surprisingly, this study was funded in part by the infant-

formula industry.

 

Most of the fears concerning soy formula have focused on estrogens.

There are other problems as well, notably much higher levels of

aluminum, fluoride, and manganese than are found in either

breastmilk or dairy formulas.90-96 All three metals have the

potential to adversely affect brain development. Although trace

amounts of manganese are vital to the development of the brain,

toxic levels accrued from ingestion of soy formula during infancy

have been found in children suffering from attention-deficit

disorders, dyslexia, and other learning problems.97, 98

Soy apologists sometimes argue that the plant hormones in soy

formula could not possibly be harmful because Japanese women eat a

lot of soy products and so must have high levels of phytoestrogens

in their breastmilk. Researchers, however, have measured the soy

isoflavones in breastmilk and found them low even in vegetarian

women who consume copious quantities of tofu, soy milk, soy protein

shakes, and other soy foods.99-101

 

Limited evidence, however, suggests that vegetarian women who eat a

lot of soy foods during pregnancy may put their infants at risk in

terms of their future reproductive health, fertility, and possibly

increased risk of breast cancer. All of the problems that have

befallen infants on soy formula, as well as estrogen-related birth

defects, have occurred (in animal studies, at least) to the

offspring of mothers who were given high doses of soy during

pregnancy.102 One of these birth defects that has been linked to

vegetarian diets in humans is hypospadias, a developmental disorder

in which the opening of the penis is located on the underside of the

shaft.103

 

Until soy estrogens are definitely linked to reproductive-tract

abnormalities, infertility, and other health problems in humans,

most health authorities recommend that we " wait and see. " This could

be a terrible mistake.

 

In the 1940s and 1950s, another estrogen, diethylstilbestrol (DES),

was widely given to Western women early in their pregnancies in a

misguided attempt to prevent miscarriage. That fact is relevant not

only because DES bears a striking structural similarity to some

plant estrogens-including soy isoflavones-but because it took more

than 20 years before the full spectrum of harmful effects was

observed.104, 105

DES is 100,000 times more potent than soy phytoestrogens. However,

the large quantities of phytoestrogens in soy products are more than

enough to counteract their lower potency. When the effects of

isoflavones in fetal and neonatal animals have been studied, they

have paralleled those observed in human infants exposed to DES.106,

107 Recent studies indicate that the soy isoflavone known as

genistein may be even more carcinogenic than DES.108

 

Yet the belief persists that soy hormones are " safe " because they

are " weak " and " natural. " Although the soy industry has claimed that

soy estrogens are anywhere from 10,000 to 1,000,000 times weaker

than the human estrogen estradiol, the correct figure is only 1,200

times as weak.109 Though this still sounds quite weak, it is not-

because of the quantity of these estrogens ingested by infants on

soy formula, and by children and adults who eat soy every day. These

individuals consume far more soy estrogens than were ever part of a

traditional diet in Asia. The average isoflavones intake in China is

3 milligrams, or 0.05 mg per kilogram of body weight.

 

In Japan, the figures range from 10 to 28 mg, or 0.17 to 0.47

isoflavones per kg of body weight. In contrast, infants receiving

soy formula average 38 mg of isoflavones, which comes to a shocking

6.25 mg/kg of body weight. Compare that dose to the 0.47 mg/kg per

day fed to healthy Japanese adult men and women who experienced

thyroid suppression after just three months-or to the 0.75 mg/kg of

isoflavones fed to American women who experienced hormonal changes

sufficient to skew their menstrual cycles after just one month.110

Although children and teenagers are less vulnerable than infants,

their young bodies are still developing, and highly vulnerable to

endocrine-system disruption by soy. And soy has been shown to pass

through the placentas of pregnant women to their unborn babies.

Meanwhile, the jury is still out on whether soy might help alleviate

menopausal symptoms or prevent osteoporosis and breast cancer. The

soy industry's top scientists, convened at the Fifth International

Symposium on the Role of Soy in the Preventing and Reversing Chronic

Disease (held in Orlando, Florida, September 21-24, 2003), conceded

that the data are confusing and contradictory, with some studies

suggesting that soy might be helpful, and others showing that soy

contributes to osteoporosis and promotes breast cancer.

 

What's certain is that the levels of soy estrogens that might

possibly have a beneficial effect on hormonally related diseases

have been proven to jeopardize the health of the thyroid. Likewise,

the 25 grams of soy protein per day touted by the FDA to lower

cholesterol (see sidebar, " Boon to the Industry: The FDA's Soy

Protein Health Claim " ) is very likely to harm the thyroid, and thus

increase one of the risk factors for heart disease.

 

The bottom line is that the safety of soy foods has yet to be

proven, and that human beings have become guinea pigs in what Daniel

M. Sheehan, formerly senior toxicologist with the FDA's National

Center for Toxicological Research, has called a " large, uncontrolled

and basically unmonitored human experiment. " 111

http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/food/soy_story.html