Should you eat or avoid Soy? Facts you didn't know.

Is Soy worth it's high protein content?

A Soybean a rather simple legume originating from Eastern Asia thousands of years ago has in one form or another beaned its way into the pantries of almost every household.

Soybeans are nutritionally one of the best plant crops ever discovered containing a high amounts of Calcium Potassium Fiber Vitamin C folic acid and healthy polyunsaturated fats but these legumes are best known for its high protein content. We're at 36 grams of protein any serving beats out all other plants.

 It's even been called a super-food with links to reducing heart disease risk, prostate cancer, osteoporosis and even Alzheimer's.

 Soy is now popular as an alternative for common food products such as burgers pasta and milk but it wasn't always popular. It made its US debut 1700 and was fed exclusively to animals. Not until the 1920s that we start eating it ourselves.

 It was all fine and dandy for this little super-food up until new studies began making some really serious claims. Claims that made soy seem completely evil, people got scared, pitchforks went up and soy's popularity is in disarray. But what exactly are the studies saying? Should we really fear a little legume? According to the studies a reason to avoid soy is high concentration of Isoflavones, which in high doses can cause the development of cancerous cells. Quite a serious problem if true, however other studies show that Isoflavones had no correlation to cancer cells at all but in fact it might prevent cancer cell development and in women it even reduced menopausal symptoms as well.

But men be careful since the study showed lower testosterone levels in mice after ingesting 20 milligrams per kilogram of these evil Isoflavones. 

!-- adsense -->But wait, how much Isoflavone is that exactly in human levels? That's equivalent to an unreal 57 cups of soy milk per day. A more practical study found zero testosterone changes when subjects consumed the equivalent of three cups of soy milk per day. But there is more claims against soy in another case claims were made that soy can interfere with thyroid function because soy contains Goitrogens, a substance that leeches iodine from thyroid hormones. 

Not good at all but again study showed that even subjects with low iodine levels showed zero changes in their thyroid from eating soy, in fact the American Thyroid Association reviewed 14 studies about this problem and concluded that there is little evidence of soy negatively impacting thyroid function.

 But perhaps the biggest soy controversy is genetic modification a staggering 79% of all soybeans in the world are genetically modified. Although genetic modification aka GMO is a colossal topic that can't be covered here alone it can be said that as far as research goes there is no sign that GMO soy will cause harmful effects to human health. This stance however can change in the future if the research shows otherwise, of course we also don't know how the substances such as pesticides used on GMO crops might affect our health. Now with all these studies analyzed what's the verdict? Should we still eat soy? Indications are that moderate consumption should be okay. There's no strong evidence showing that soy will cause cancer, lower testosterone or mess up your thyroid.

 Also if you cook or ferment the beans, a lot of these supposedly dangerous toxins are actually eliminated in the process. 

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Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15534433
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11157317
https://examine.com/supplements/soy-isoflavones/
https://examine.com/nutrition/is-soy-good-or-bad-for-me/
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/7/12/1101.short
https://www.biomedcentral.com/content/
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?v=w3Wt7mhJRwQ&event=video_description&redir_token=6XHhWoBr98R4Y1T_rzMVvXy-ViZ8MTUxMTYxOTM5MEAxNTExNTMyOTkw&q=http%3A%2F%2Fjoe.endocrinology-journals.org%2Fcontent%2F170%2F3%2F591.full.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17416779
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12060828
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16571087
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=300
https://www.womenshealthnetwork.com/thyroid-health/goitrogenic-foods-thyroid-health.aspx?utm_source=w2w&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=%2Fthyroid-health%2Fgoitrogens-and-thyroid-health-the-good-news%2F
 

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