Soy weakens your immune system

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Soy Weakens Your Immune SystemA hormone-like compound found in soy products, including soy-based infantformulas and menopause remedies, may impair immune function.When mice were injected with the "plant estrogen" genistein, which is foundin soy products, levels of several immune cells dropped and the thymus, agland where immune cells mature, shrank.Of course, people eat rather than inject soy products, but the thymus alsobecame smaller in mice that consumed genistein in their diet. This isparticularly concerning, researchers say, since the resulting blood levelsof genistein in the mice were lower than those reported in human babies fedsoy formula.A few reports from the late 1970s and early 1980s suggested that a soy-baseddiet impaired infants' immune functions. About 15% of infants in the US, orroughly 750,000 children, consume soy-based formula each year.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_uids=12023462 & dopt=Abstract

 

May 21, 2002;99:7616-7621