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Vegan diet lowers hormone levels?


akiravp82
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Hey guys my name is john new to this board nice to meet everyone! im thinking of switching to a raw vegan diet because of alot of health problems (thyroid,low testerone,ect) , but the crazy thing is ive asked this question on alot of different boards (non vegan forums) and people are telling me im nuts and that a vegan diet will worsen my problems because a vegan diet has the ability to lower testosterone in certain individuals is this true? the whole point of me even trying the raw vegan diet is to see if it can somehow help to fix my hormonal issues to a certain extent and hopefully i can reduce alot of my medications am i thinking in the right direction here or not? to many people are telling me a vegan diet might lower my sex hormones even lower rather than increasing it , if someone has any advice on this topic i would really appreciate it.

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Hello John.

 

Why do you think a raw vegan diet will help in your case? It has been shown to help those wtih type-2 diabetes but I'm not sure about the conditions you mention.

 

I can't give any information about a raw vegan diet but I don't see how it could adversely affect you. Tlhe usual suspects for thyroid and sex hormone problems are the isoflavones in soya. I don't think soya is part of a raw vegan diet - unless it includes sprouted fermented soya beans.

 

One study found that people with subclinical hypothyroidism who were given 16mg of soya isoflavones for 8 weeks progressed into overt hypothyroidism. But these were women. I've only seen the abstract and don't know what forms of soya they consumed. If they'd been eating immature, boiled soya beans, they would have needed about 4 ounces to get 16mg. If they'd been eating tofu, they would have needed 2 to 4 ounces, depending on the brand. More than likely, they were given some form of isoflavone isolate.

 

It has been known for some time that soya can have this effect in normal subjects who don't have an adequate source of iodine in their diets.

 

Other studies found no evidence of soya having feminising influences on men, no effects of soy protein or isoflavones on reproductive hormones in men, and that supplementation with soya protein for 12 weeks 'does not decrease serum testosterone or inhibit lean body mass changes in subjects engaged in a resistance exercise program.'

 

Not raw vegan but I'm sure raw vegan food will be even less likely to cause any adverse changes. That's just my opinion.

 

Good luck in your quest for better health. If I find anything relevant I'll post it here.

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Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 2011 May;96(5):1442-9. Epub 2011 Feb 16.

The effect of soy phytoestrogen supplementation on thyroid status and cardiovascular risk markers in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism: a randomized, double-blind, crossover study.

PMID: 21325465

 

Fertility and Sterility. 2010 Aug;94(3):997-1007. Epub 2009 Jun 12.

Clinical studies show no effects of soy protein or isoflavones on reproductive hormones in men: results of a meta-analysis.

PMID: 19524224

 

Fertility and Sterility. 2010 May 1;93(7):2095-104. Epub 2010 Apr 8.

Soybean isoflavone exposure does not have feminizing effects on men: a critical examination of the clinical evidence.

PMID: 20378106

 

Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2007 Jul 23;4:4.

Effect of protein source and resistance training on body composition and sex hormones.

PMID: 17908338

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I want everyone to go vegan. It would definitely be a good idea for you to go vegan for a lot of reasons. I'm just saying, you're planning on going raw and not just vegan. I don't advocate a raw diet because it's very difficult to obtain enough of several nutrients and is needlessly constraining and hard to stick with. Of course, most people would say the same thing about a normal vegan diet. Read Becoming Raw by Brenda Davis to find out more. I'd suggest going vegan and using "Vegan for Life" by Jack Norris and Ginny Messina as your guide. They lay out all the nutrition information clearly.

 

The point I was trying to make though was that fat is necessary for hormone production among other things so a high fruit raw diet may be a bad idea for controlling hormones. But if you're prediabetic as you say now, it's possible that the hormone issue is a symptom of metabolic syndrome and not an isolated problem.

 

Since you're prediabetic, you might be interested in books by John McDougall, Neil Barnes, and others about losing weight and controlling diabetes through a whole foods vegan diet. Some of them advocate extreme low fat approaches though (ie few if any nuts, seeds, olives or avocados) which seems like a bad idea to me.

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