The Shadow of Soy
Or, How I stopped loving and learned
to worry about the bean
By Sean
Carson
You've
joined an army of thousands committed to being all you can be. You rise
at dawn to pound the pavement, or climb the Stairmaster to heavenly
buttocks, while listening to Deepak Chopra on your Walkman. Or, maybe
you contort yourself into yoga asanas in rooms hotter than a Korean
chutney. You drink only purified water as you toss a handful of the
latest longevity pills into your mouth. You're hungry, hungry for
health, and no doubt about it, you're no stranger to soy.
Faster than
you can say "isoflavone," the humble soybean has insinuated itself into
a dominant position in the standard American diet. And that shouldn't
be a surprise. Cheap, versatile, and karma-free, soy in the 1990s went
from obscurity as vegan-and-hippie staple to Time magazine. With mad
cows lurking between whole wheat buns, and a growing distrust of
conventionally-produced dairy products, soy seemed like the ideal
choice, the perfect protein.
But like
all seemingly perfect things, a shadow lurked. By the final years of
the last decade, a number of soy researchers began to cry foul. Soy
Good? Soy Bad?
As the soy
industry lobbied the FDA for a cardiovascular health claim for soy
protein, two senior FDA scientists, Daniel Sheehan and Daniel Doerge -
both specialists in estrogen research - wrote a letter vigorously
opposing such a claim. In fact, they suggested a warning might be more
appropriate. Their concern? Two isoflavones found in soy, genistein and
daidzen, the same two promoted by the industry for everything from
menopause relief to cancer protection, were said to "demonstrate
toxicity in estrogen sensitive tissues and in the thyroid." Moreover,
"adverse effects in humans occur in several tissues and, apparently, by
several distinct mechanisms." Sheehan also quoted a landmark study
(Cassidy, et al. 1994), showing that as little as 45mg of isoflavones
could alter the length of a pre-menopausal woman's menstrual cycle. The
scientists were particularly concerned about the effects of these two
plant estrogens on fetuses and young infants, because "development is
recognized as the most sensitive life stage for estrogen toxicity."
It wasn't
the first time scientists found problems with soy, but coupled with a
Hawaiian study by Dr. Lon White on men, the controversy ended up on
national television. While industry scientists criticized both the
White study and the two FDA researchers (who are now disallowed from
commenting publicly on the issue), other researchers weighed in on the
anti-soy side. The tofu'd fight had begun.
What about
Asia?
One of the
favorite mantras of soy advocates is that the ubiquitous bean has been
used "safely by Asians for thousands of years." With many soy "experts"
(often with ties to the soy industry) recommending more than 250 grams
of soy foods - and in some cases, more than 100mg of isoflavones each
day - it's easy to get the impression that soy plays a major role in
the Asian diet. If you saw it on TV or read it in a magazine, it must
be true, right? Well, not exactly.
Sally
Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation
(www.westonaprice.org) and author of Nourishing Traditions, responds
that the soy industry and media have spun a self-serving version of the
traditional use of soy in Asia. "The tradition with soy is that it was
fermented for a long time, from six months to three years and then
eaten as a condiment, not as a replacement for animal foods," she
says.
Fallon
states that the so-called Asian diet - far from centering around soy -
is based on meat. Approximately 65% of Japanese calorie intake comes
from fish in Japan, while in China the same percentage comes from pork.
"They're not using a lot of soy in Asia - an average of 2 teaspoons a
day in China and up to a quarter cup in some parts of Japan, but not a
huge amount."
Contrast
that with modern America, home of "if a little is good for you, more
must be better." Walk into any grocery store, especially the
health-oriented variety, and you'll find the ever-present soybean. My
recent, limited survey of Marin food stores found soy in dozens and
dozens of items: granola, vegetarian chili, a vast sundry of imitation
animal foods, pasta, most protein powders and "power" bars, and even
something called "nature's burger," which given the kind of elaborate
(and often toxic) processing that goes into making soy isolate and TVP,
would make Mother Nature wince. There's even a bread - directly
marketed to women - containing more than 80mg of soy isoflavones per
serving, which is more than the daily dose in purified isoflavone
supplements. All of this, in addition to the traditional soy fare of
tempeh, tofu, miso, and soy sauce. It's no wonder that Californians are
edamame dreaming.
So, while
Asians were using limited to moderate amounts of painstakingly prepared
soy foods - the alleged benefits of which are still controversial -
Americans, especially vegetarians, are consuming more soy products and
isoflavones than any culture in human history, and as one researcher
put it, "entering a great unknown."
Oddly,
nowhere in industry promotion does anyone differentiate between
traditional, painstakingly prepared "Asian" soy foods and the modern,
processed items that Fallon calls "imitation food." And therein lies
the rub. Modern soy protein foods in no way resemble the traditional
Asian soy foods, and may contain carcinogens like nitrates,
lysinoalanine, as well as a number of anti-nutrients which are only
significantly degraded by fermentation or other traditional
processing.
"People
need to realize that when they're eating these soy foods - and I'm not
talking about miso or tofu - but soy "burgers," soy "cheese," soy "ice
cream," and all of this stuff, that they are not the real thing. They
may look like the real thing and they may taste like the real thing,
but they do not have the life supporting qualities of real foods,"
Fallon says.
There's No
Business Like Soy Business
"The reason
there's so much soy in America is because they started to plant soy to
extract the oil from it and soy oil became a very large industry," says
lipid specialist and nutritionist Mary Enig, PhD. "Once they had as
much oil as they did in the food supply they had a lot of soy protein
residue left over, and since they can't feed it to animals, except in
small amounts, they had to find another market."
According
to Enig, female pigs can only ingest it in amounts approximating 1%
during their gestational phase and a few percent greater during their
lactation diet, or else face reproduction damage and developmental
problems in the piglets. "It can be used for chickens, but it really
has limitations. So, if you can't feed it to animals, than you find
gullible human beings, and you develop a health claim, and you feed it
to them."
In a
co-written article, Enig and Fallon state that soybean producers pay a
mandatory assessment of ½ to 1 percent of the net market price of
soybeans to help fund programs to "strengthen the position of soybeans
in the marketplace and maintain and expand foreign markets for uses for
soybeans and soy products."
They also
cite advertising figures - multi-million dollar figures - that
soy-oriented companies like Archer Daniels Midland or ADM spend for
spots on national television. Money is also used to fund PR campaigns,
favorable articles, and lobbying interests. A relaxation of USDA rules
has lead to an increase in soy use in school lunches. Far from being
the "humble" or "simple" soybean, soy is now big business - very big
business. This is not your father's soybean.
There's
been such a rush to market isoflavones that the before-mentioned
multinational corporation, ADM, in 1998, petitioned the FDA for GRAS
(generally recognized as safe) status for soy isoflavones. For those
who don't know GRAS, the designation is used for foods, and in some
case, food additives, that have been used safely for many years by
humans. For those who didn't know - like a number of protesting
scientists - that soy isoflavones had been widely used by generations
of Americans before the late 1950s, it was a revelation indeed.
Ahem.
Dr.
Sheehan, in his 1998 letter to the FDA referenced earlier, states "
that soy protein foods are GRAS is in conflict with the recent return
by CFSAN to Archer Daniels Midland of a petition for GRAS status for
soy protein because of deficiencies in reporting the adverse effects in
the petition. Thus GRAS status has not been granted." And what about
those safety issues?
Requiem
for a Thyroid
One of the
biggest concerns about high intake of soy isoflavones is their clearly
defined toxic effect on the thyroid gland. You don't have work too hard
to convince Dr. Larrian Gillespie of that. Dr. Gillespie, author of The
Menopause Diet, in the name of scientific empiricism, decided to run
her own soy experiment - on herself. She notes that she fits the
demographic soy isoflavones are most marketed to: borderline
hypothyroid, menopausal females.
"I did it
in two different ways. I tried the (isoflavone) supplements (at 40mg),
where I went into flagrant hypothryoidism within 72 hours, and I did
the 'eat lots of tofu category,' and it did the same thing, but it took
me five days with that. I knew what I was doing but it still took me
another 7-10 days to come out of it."
In the
currrent issue of the Whole Earth Review, herbalist Susan Weed tells
the story of Michael Moore - no, not that Michael Moore, but the
founder of the Southwest School of Herbal Medicine. In an e-mail to
Weed, Moore declares that "soy did me in." Weed describes how Moore, in
his own experiment, ate a large amount of manufactured soy products -
protein powders, "power" bars, and soy drinks, over a period of three
weeks. Weed writes that Moore ended up in a cardiac care unit because
the action on his thyroid had been so pronounced.
Harvard-trained
medical doctor Richard Shames, MD, a thyroid specialist who has had a
longtime practice in Marin, says that "genistein is the most difficult
for the metabolic processes of people with low thyroid, so when you
have that present in high enough concentrations, the result is an
antagonism to the function of thyroid hormone.'
Far from
being an isolated problem, Shames says that recent data tags twenty
million Americans being treated for thyroid problems, another thirteen
million who ought to be treated if they would get a TSH (thyroid
stimulating hormone) test, and another thirteen million who would show
up normal on a TSH test but would test positive on another, more
specific test. All in all, Shames believes that low thyroid conditions
- many due to exposure to estrogen-mimicking chemicals like PCBs and
DDT in environment - are the mother of most modern health epidemics.
That's a
lot of thyroid problems. Some estimate the number to be as high as one
in ten. Shames says that 8 of 10 thyroid sufferers are women - often
older women - like Dr. Gillespie. The same demographic the soy industry
has set its targets on.
"If you're
a normal person, and one in ten are not normal, the effect [of 50mg of
soy isoflavones] may be fairly insignificant, but even a normal person
can have problems at levels greater than that," says Shames.
Dr.
Gillespie says the daily amount to cause thyroid problems may be as low
as 30mg, or less than a serving of soymilk.
A number of
soy proponents say the thyroid concerns are exaggerated and that if
dietary iodine is sufficient, problems won't likely happen.
Not so says
Shames. "Iodine is a double-edged sword for people with thyroid
problems, and for those people, more is going to increase their chance
for an autoimmune reaction... throwing iodine at it is not going to be
the protective solution. Shames recommends limiting soy foods to a few
times a week, preferably fermented or well cooked.
Birth
Control Pills for Babies?
Environmental
toxicologist Mike Fitzpatrick, PhD says he doesn't have it out for soy.
His original concern was for babies. "They were getting more soy
isoflavones, at least on a body weight basis, than anybody else," he
notes. "It wasn't so much that I knew what that would do, but that I
didn't know what that would do." Fitzpatrick, who is also Web master of
Soy Online Services (www.soyonlineservice.co.nz), Web site devoted to
informing people about the potential problems with soy, stresses the
potential dangers for the developing human body. "Any person with any
kind of understanding of environmental endocrine disruptors, compounds
{like isoflavones} that are not in the body normally and can modify
hormones and the way they work in the body, any expert will say that
infants need to avoid these things like the plague."
Fitzpatrick
was quoted - and misquoted - world wide a few years ago when he
suggested that the isoflavones in soy formula were the equivalent of
birth control pills.
"When I
first did my review I did compare the estrogenic equivalents of the
contraceptive pill with how much soy infants and adults would be
consuming," he says. "It's at least the equivalent of one or two
estrogen pills a day, on an estrogenic basis. I've been criticized that
it's not the same form of estrogen, but in terms of estrogenicity, it's
a crude but valid and alarming statistic."
The typical
response by industry experts has been to downplay the uniqueness of soy
isoflavones, stating - accurately - that isoflavones of ovarious kinds
are prevalent in most fruits, vegetables, and legumes.
Is it time
to toss out the apple sauce?
"No, you're
not going to do that because you get exposure from all kinds of things,
but the exposure you get from soy is way, way higher," Fitzpatrick
says. "Soy formula is going to give babies a real whack, far in excess
of what you might find in apples. Soy is a very rich source of
isoflavones - that's how the industry markets their product. You don't
see an apple extract to help women deal with menopause."
You've got
to wonder how the industry can market soy isoflavones as a form of
estrogen replacement therapy for menopausal women (and a host of other
health claims) and still claim that soy formula is safe for infants.
And while the mechanism for biological activity is clearly defined, the
industry keeps repeating the same tune: "no credible evidence
exists."
But
credible for whom? Says Fitzpatrick: "We're not talking about little
studies here but long-term effects on infants and adults, and that's
what concerns me. It's very trite. They (the industry) give half-baked
answers. What you really need is longterm studies." Likewise, "no
credible evidence" is not good enough for Dr. Naomi Baumslag, professor
of pediatrics at Georgetown University Medical School. She joined a
host of others in criticizing a recent article in JAMA that was
perported to be the definitive study on soy formula safety.
"It was not
an acceptable epidemiological study - you can take it to any decent
epidemiologist and hear what they think about it, and they use it to
say that soy is safe," says Baumslag. "It's totally
unsubstantiated."
Manganese
Madness
Besides the
dangers of prematurity and other reproductive problems posed by
isoflavones, Baumslag mentions the high levels of the mineral manganese
(no, not magnesium) often found in soy formula. The problem of
manganese is so serious that even one soy manufacturer put warning
labels on its soymilk. The company's president, in a press release,
states that "there is mounting evidence of a correlation between
manganese in soy milk (including soy-based infant formula) and
neurotoxicity in small infants." With manganese toxicity known for
producing behavioral disorders, the press release even goes further
stating, "If research continues, showing that the current epidemic
levels of ADHD in children, as well as impulsivity and violence among
adolescents, are connected with the increase in soy-based infant
formula use our industry could suffer a serious setback by not dealing
with the issue upfront."
With all of
the potential problems with soy formula, Baumslag notes that formula is
also missing key immunological factors only found in mother's milk, the
lack of which could give a child a life sentence of chronic health
problems. She links soy pushing to corporate profits and the PR
campaigns that they fund.
"There's
been so much PR in regards to soy formula and I think you also have to
ask yourself why it's so much cheaper for them to make, which means
there's more profits. How come only 1% in the UK are on formula, where
it's closer to 30% in the United States? I don't know why it's so
important for them to push soy, they should push breast feeding."
Perhaps its because breast milk for babies isn't as lucrative as
milking the soybean for profits.
Caveat
Emptor
As a former
vegan - and big soy eater - I'm disturbed by the vast array of modern,
processed soy products that have come on the market in the last few
years, without any recognition of potential pitfalls. Safe bet: If it
hasn't been eaten safely for thousands of years, you probably shouldn't
put it at the center of your diet. We've been sold a bill of goods that
says "soy is good for you" but it doesn't tell you what kind of soy or
how much, or even definitively if soy really is what makes Asians so
supposedly healthy.
It's well
known that the Japanese also eat a very large amount of omega 3 fatty
acids from fish each day - substances which have been clearly shown to
have anti-cancer and anti-heart disease effects. So, is it the soy or
is it the fish? As the industry spends millions and millions of dollars
to find something that isoflavones are good for, some health claim to
justify their unprecedented presence in the American diet, I have to
ask: why are they trying so hard? Why is there such a push to push
soy?
Soy
isoflavones are clearly biologically active - they affect change in
your body. It's no longer acceptable for the industry to see no bad,
hear no bad, and speak no bad. Legitimate concerns need to be studied -
and not studies funded by the industry, conducted by soy scientists.
In the
meantime, I've located a wonderful, old miso company on the north
coast. They age their miso for three years in wood barrels and sell it
in glass jars. It's rich, earthy, and real. I enjoy a teaspoon in a
glass of hot water a few times a week after dinner. It tastes lively
and feels good. I no longer get the "urge" to eat soy "dogs" or soy
"burgers," though I now suspect that urge didn't come from my own
instinct, but from the lofty dictates of the soy experts.
But why
wait years, while ignorant armies clash over this and that isoflavone
and studies that say one thing or another? Perhaps the safest way to
use soy, if you choose to use soy, is the way it's been used by Asians
for thousands of years: fermented, in moderation, as a condiment. In
short, color me cautious.
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