Here is an article written by Dr. Dave, who has a website selling various products and a daily email touting fish oil.
It would be sweet if guys like Lonnie Lowery and some of our scientifically inclined t-people responded to it.
Its long, but reads quickly; if you’re too busy to read it, it can be summed up as: “Soy estrogens are not human estrogens, and they do not behave just
like human estrogens - don’t believe everything you read. However, its not 100% proven to have favorable health benefits either. Fish oil does though.”
" The Truth About SOY! Part 1"
Or more BAD information from the Alternative Health Gurus!!!
Today’s topic is a fun one for me because there is so much misinformation about soy and soy products propagated by people who have not closely examined the facts. In many cases there are simple knee jerk reactions that could be avoided if there person did their research.
Worse some of these people know better and in my opinion are deliberately
spreading information they know or should know is wrong if they are real doctors! They know that shock value sells and gets their stuff read . . . positions them as experts. They also know that most people will not have the resources to prove them wrong.
I DO!!!
First off let’s talk about why soy is so popular.
A lot of its popularity comes from examining long lived populations and
noticing that they have a few things in common.
The Japanese and Okinawans have some of the longest lived people on earth, and in the largest numbers.
Therefore some people have concluded that if we follow their diets, we
can live a long time too.
Unfortunately this is a gross oversimplification. I don’t think that the average 45 year old man in poor physical condition with a family history of high blood pressure and heart disease, 2 spoiled brat kids , and unhappy wife and an ungratifying job is going to save more than a year or 2 of his pathetic hide by eating a Japanese diet.
If he were to adopt other behaviors such as daily meditation, regular
physical activity and genuine good old fashioned friendship family and community as well as regular PLAYTIME like a kid, then the diet would do a lot more good.
Bottom line: contentedness and happiness and low stress or dealing with
stress in
a positive fashion counts big time!
Next, a little reminder that trailing the Japanese by only a few months
in
longevity are the Icelanders.
Like the Japanese, they smoke and drink quite a bit.
Like the Japanese they consume large amounts of Omega 3 essential fatty
acid Fish
Oil.
There is no SOY in Iceland!
Since I have been told not to be cryptic in my writing, I will say the
obvious:
If there is any one thing that keeps people alive longer in both of
these
populations, it is not Soy, but FISH OIL!
I think both populations would live a lot longer if they got their Fish
Oil from
supplements that were pure instead of Fish that were tainted.
Japanese women also have a lower rate of breast cancer
than
Western women. Soy has been cited as a main reason for this.
Remember the island of Japan was exposed to not 1 but 2 nuclear bombs
and has
tons of air pollution because of the population density.
Again there is a fair amount of alcohol consumption and cigarettes are
common.
Japan still remains one of the highest per capita consumers of tobacco
products
in the world.
And yet in spite of all these environmental factors, they have a lower
incidence
of many kinds of cancer.
If you take people of Japanese descent and follow them after they move
here, they
start getting “Western”
Diseases with the same rate as non Japanese.
The role of soy in this is unclear, but one thing is for certain.
Native
Japanese women consume larger amounts of soy and soy products by far
than there
American counterparts from birth on.
Therein lies the first problem: from birth on. No one really knows if
a 45 year
old woman starts taking soy or soy products at that age whether she’ll
get any
benefit at all.
Do we need them from birth?
Next is the phrase “soy product”. There are a lot of soy products out
there from
soy milk to soy vitamins.
Which ones are beneficial.
Most of the “soy isoflavones” which are the typical soy capsules
contain a
“Phytoestrogen” called Genistein as the main ingredient. There are
several
others in there too.
A Phytoestrogen is a plant estrogen that helps the plant control its
reproductive
cycles.
There are some distinct chemical similarities to human estrogen which
evolutionists use to support Darwin’s theories.
But, to say that soy estrogens behave exactly like human estrogens (
any more
than horse estrogens like Premarin tm do !!) is misleading and just
flat out
WRONG.
This is where a lot of Gurus show their ignorance. They make the
assumption that
since soy products have estrogens, they must be bad for you since
Western men and
women tend to suffer form “Estrogen Excess”.
They often site them as causing feminization in men, breast cancer in
women, and
other problems associated with too much estrogen.
One guru recently went so far as to point out that soy products are the
new fake
health food used by the low carb diet industry to replace carbs in
flour products
etc.
He went on to make all the mistakes I mentioned above.
Hundreds of thousands of people read his stuff and believe it. Dozens
of other
gurus will be parroting his newsletters any day now.
“The Truth About Soy Part 2”
Ok, in order to continue this discussion, let’s remind ourselves of a
few things.
While soy has estrogen like properties and his distantly related to the
estrogens
found in humans, it does not behave just like human estrogen.
Hormones are very complicated things, a fact that some of the
Alternative health
gurus seem to have forgotten or never learned in the first place.
The Phytoestrogens in soy (plant estrogens like Genistein and Daidzein)
can
weakly bind to human estrogen receptors.
Once they or any hormone is bound, it causes a series of events called
“post
receptor, or second messenger actions”.
In English this means that something happens INSIDE the cell as a
result of this
binding.
If our friends that are pointing to soy as a bad thing would remember
this fact,
they would also remember that without this action, nothing much would
happen.
This is exactly what happens with soy isoflavones. They bind to
estrogen
receptors because they have some similarities to human estrogens, but
nothing
much happens inside the cell. They kinda just sit there.
They do not disrupt the hormonal axis of the body greatly, they do not
cause the
same post receptor actions that real human estrogens do, and they don’t
seem to
contribute to breast cancer or other cancers.
Not too long ago a lady in my practice went to the surgeon who had done
her
breast cancer surgery.
I did not know she was taking soy and neither did the surgeon. When
she told the
surgeon, she (the surgeon was a she) went ballistic and screamed at her
that this
would bring her breast cancer back.
The truth is this makes absolutely no sense. By blocking the estrogen
receptors
and preventing human estrogens, which could actually do something in
the cell
from binding, the soy proteins probably confer at least a little
protection.
Again we are really not sure because soy vitamins are not soy foods,
but still it
makes plenty of sense biochemically.
Now a few more good things about soy.
Since estrogens have been implicated in prostate cancer too, it appears
that soy
may reduce the incidence of that also, again by a blocking action at
the site of
the receptor.
By the way receptor blockade is nothing new in medicine. It is used
for all
kinds of drugs from high blood pressure to lowering cholesterol.
Again I am surprised that some of our guru friends out there who claim
to be real
doctors don’t remember this.
By similar mechanisms soy has been shown to reduce post menopausal bone
loss in
women (osteoporosis), heat flashes, and lower bad cholesterol when
accompanied by
a totally vegan diet.
Now lest you think I am pro soy here are some Bad things about soy.
It doesn’t seem to work for everyone, especially with regards to
menopausal
symptoms.
It is loaded with fat, and a lot of it is Omega 6 fat. 51% to be exact
with only
7% Omega 3’s.
So if you take a lot of say products, balance them out with Fish Oil to
keep your
Omega 3 to 6 ratios favorable.
As far as a protein source, I do occasionally use soy. But I use it in
its food
form (miso, tofu, tempeh), not in pill form. Frankly there are far
better
protein sources unless you are a Vegan.
So in summary here is the TRUTH.
- We don’t know if soy is the reason that Oriental women have longer
lives, or
lower risks of breast cancer, but if it is , it should probably
consumed from
birth and in Food form, not pill form.
This is in direct contrast to Fish Oil. We know from studies that the
active
ingredients in fish are the Omega 3 fatty acids, because they are the
only
elements of fish that are essential to our diet. Everything else can
be gotten
from other food stuffs.
Soy proteins which wind up in vitamin capsules have not been shown to
be the only
active ingredient.
As with most plants there are many things in soy that could be
contributing to
health benefits. We have not studied MOST plants well enough to know
what is
actually in them, nor have all of these chemicals been synthesized in a
lab yet
and studied separately.
When this happens we can look at which ingredients are most important.
Don’t be too surprised if this turns out to be all or most of them! As
a fan of
Mother Nature I hate the way Western Science always has to try to “Dis
Integrate”
a compound to find out what makes it tick. Sometimes it’s the whole
ball of wax
that is needed.
- Soy estrogens are not human estrogens, and they do not behave just
like human
estrogens.
As women age the dominant estrogen becomes one called estrone. High
levels of
estrone have been implicated in causing Breast cancer, Uterine Cancer,
heart
attacks, stroke, and blood clots, all the same things that oral
PREMARIN seems to
cause.
Soy estrogens are estrogen receptor blockers much like breast cancer
medicines
and medicines that fight osteoporosis. It is highly unlikely (but not
yet truly
known) whether they can promote cancer.
If you consume soy for health benefits, start it early in your life and
take it
as food. Again this is based on scientific studies. No one knows for
sure what
it does for first time users who are post menopausal. My guess is it
probably
does help.
Fish Oil does everything health wise that soy claims to do and there
is
definitive proof. And you can start it anytime in your life and still
see the
benefits! You decide!!! Best, Doc