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Does soy raise estrogen levels in men?


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Ok, would someone please tell me the truth.

I have heard some controversy from some doctors that soy increases estrogen levels in men. It sounds crazy to me because I've always drank soy milk in my cereal a lot and I would prefer soy milk for my protein drinks.

When I heard this I freaked out and stopped drinking it.

I'm hoping this is just a myth. Are there any licensed nutritionist on board who can answer this? I don't consume enough soy but I'm ready to take the plunge cause I want to get away from meat.

Robert, anybody??

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Many plant foods contain phyto-estrogens, unless you're excessive about it, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Alright, I'll lay this fear to rest. I'm not going to worry about it then.

I still have to shave every morning so this estrogen scare apparently isn't that big a deal.

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I'm not the most masculine guy in the world but i am fairly hairy, have a pretty deep voice, have fathered 3 kids & still do not have cleavage - all this despite having eaten & drank large amounts of soy on a regular basis for over a dozen years now. I dont see men getting more estrogen as a bad thing anyway but soy certainly doesnt seem to have had a signifigant effect on me that way!

 

That said, variety is a great thing so why not mix it up with other vegan & non-soy foods?

 

ps. I moved this to men's health as it seems like a more appropriate place for this particular discussion.

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I'd say no. Besides Men have estrogen in there bodies already. So if you got anymore you wouldn't become gay just a bit more sensative. Besides women love that so drink up

 

anyways but really. I can drink a whole half-gallon( Or two) things of Soymilk if I'm really thirsty and I love Tofu aplenty. Vegan Soy Ice Cream is my friend( I could eat two whole pints of that stuff). Am I masculine? Well no. I never really have been. I have a very efeminete voice and I like watching chick flicks. But all this happened before even going Soy or trying it for the first time. In fact I have not noticed a change what-so-ever. I also like to watch movies like Die Hard and Nightmare on Elm Street. That has never changed.

 

So drink up.

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You are correct Dr. Pink. I am a sensitive guy by nature. I remember my taijutsu instructor telling the students that we should get more in touch with our feminine side. Now, the avergae guy would not understand that because they think we have to be studly all the time. I believe my instructor was talking about the yin/intuitive energy that helps us get a keen sense of our surroundings. Its really funny but, I didn't mention that when I heard this thing about estrogen level increase they said, and I'm not joking, that it causes shrinkage of the penis.

I'm not worried about it anymore cause it hasn't affected my sex drive in any way. My wife is very happy.

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I think this is one of the biggest nutritional misconceptions in modern history. Common sense would let you see the chinese are not infertile and they eat something like 8times the soy of the average american.

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  • 3 months later...

I personally feel that anything in excess is bad for you. I personally believe that any food including meat eaten in sensible portions is healthy for you as long as it's organic and the animal eats it's natural food.

 

I think natural soy products are great: tempeh, natto, miso, tofu, soy milk, soy flour are great sources of protein and soy. The phytoestrogens in soy are like 1000% less powerful than the estrogen produced by your body, so I wouldn't worry.

 

Now soy protein isolates/concentrates like in mock meats and protein powders i think are not as healthy, they are not natural. Regrettably there are really not that many good soy free mock meats. I am vegetarian so i enjoy a product called quorn that is soy free, but it has egg white in it. Field Roast makes great mock meats that are soy free, they are seitan based, though some of them are a tad bit on the fatty side.

 

http://www.fieldroast.com/products.htm

 

 

Lightlife makes a pretty good bar-b-q and teriyaki seitan as well, they have soy sauce though.

 

http://www.lightlife.com/seitan.html

 

White wave makes great seitan products but the contain soy flour.

 

http://www.tofutown.net/index.php?id=93

 

If you are worried about soy estrogen in the body, just beef up your testosterone by taking tribulus and maca. Chrysin blocks estrogen you can supplement with that if you would like. It's a balancing system, if you put some estrogen, put some testosterone. Treat your body like well turned performance car. If you put a turbo on a car, it makes more heat which is not good, but it increases power. So you increase cooling to make it more safe so you can enjoy the benefits of the turbo while minimizing safety and engine damage.

 

Soy is a great source of protein, as a side effect is has trypsin inhibitors and phytoestrogens, so beef up your nutrients with like chlorella/spirulina. And for the estrogen take tribulus and maca. Maca has di indole methane which blocks estrogen and is a precursor to progesterone which stops excess estrogen production and it is a precursor to testosterone. I use maca extreme by sunfood nutrition.

 

http://www.sunfood.com/cgi-bin/order/index.cgi?id=5398221346&d=single&item_id=0903&c=Supplements&sc=Maca&tc=

 

Tribulus is a great aryuvedic herb for increasing testosterone levels, I use it in my smoothies you can get it in 1lb bulk for 9 bucks from here:

 

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/bulkherb/t.html

 

There are lots of great ways to eat soy in it's natural state, but I would avoid the concentrates and and isolates present in just about all mock meats, unfortunately. I wish they would make more seitan based mock meats they have great taste and texture. Until then, learn to make tasty seitan dishes at home. One of my fav is from vegan yum yum

 

http://veganyumyum.com/2007/03/crispy-sweet-and-sour-seitan/

 

Just my 2 cents, l8r.

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I personally believe that any food including meat eaten in sensible portions is healthy for you as long as it's organic and the animal eats it's natural food.

 

i seriously doubt this. Animal food and dairy is not made for human consumption. We broke nature laws and now we pay the price with all the health problems, and degenerative diseases that plague human kind.

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There are no laws to nutrition as far as what we can eat. Look at the okinawans, they are the longest living people on earth, and almost NONE of them are vegan or even vegetarian.

 

If you think about it, we broke the natural laws of nutrition when we started cooking things, are you a raw foodist?

 

Meat in reasonable portions can and is quite healthy even though I don't eat it. the Indians have been consuming dairy as part of a vegetarian diet for thousands of years. Yogi's are some of the healthiest people in the world.

 

The hunzas are a small group of people living in the himalayan mountains in pakistan I believe and they eat minimal meat, but some fo them live well past 100 on average.

 

If you are going to be a scientist about things then you have to be unrelenting, putting your personal beliefs aside an looking at the facts, meat is not dangerous no matter what you believe unfortunately.

 

I don't believe in consuming them for nutrition because I think that it's bad for the environment and it's unnecessary, not because it's dangerous. Here in America the place of McDonalds and microwaves, yes we have problems. We torture animals, inject them with hormones and antibiotics and we eat copious quantities of animal products with little to no veggies, that is bad.

 

There are two secrets to health. Getting plenty of nutrients to the cells and removing toxins from the body. Any diet in excess fat or cholesterol is bad. You can be unhealthy on a vegan diet if all you ate were mock meats and vegan cookies. It's our choices. Not eating meat is a personal choice not the standard in health, and until proven other wise that long life has to do with being vegan then I will have to disagree with you. A vegan diet is not perfect. B12 cannot be obtained from any plant source, without some negligible animal intake anemia would be a problem specifically for people that were vegan since they were babies. B12 supplements don't grow on trees, that's what's unnatural. If we were meant to be vegan then we wouldn't need unnatural man made b12 supplements to survive, that's why the yogi's include milk in their diet, because 5000+ years ago when the vegetarian savttvic diet appeared there were no b12 supplements.

 

Eating a diet with about 5-10% animal products, and the rest vegan is a healthy diet. My uncle god bless him is 98, and he eats like that. He consumes small amounts of dairy from his cows on his farm, and fish that he caught in the ocean. He lives in trinidad. He is in great shape, and still works.

 

I believe the ultimate source of protein so far is raw hemp, nothing beats it, but it's expensive and most people can't afford to use it as their primary source of protein, including myself. I don't think its' reasonable to think of dairy, eggs, or meat as dangerous food sources, well because soy isn't perfect either and vegans/vegetarians eat plenty of that.

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I'm sorry but there are people that smoke more than a pack a day that live to be 100. That doesn't mean its healthy. Sure a bit of meat won't kill you but it also doesn't make you better off unless you don't have anything else to eat. I've also met a 400lb man that was over 90...does that mean being 400lbs is healthy???

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I'm sorry but there are people that smoke more than a pack a day that live to be 100. That doesn't mean its healthy. Sure a bit of meat won't kill you but it also doesn't make you better off unless you don't have anything else to eat. I've also met a 400lb man that was over 90...does that mean being 400lbs is healthy???

 

 

yeah yeah yeah! good point! i torched, scrapped, and sanded a LOT of lead based paint from the floor of a house i was living in, one snowy, WV winter. it hasn't killed me, but it doesn't mean it was not poison.

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There are no laws to nutrition as far as what we can eat. Look at the okinawans, they are the longest living people on earth, and almost NONE of them are vegan or even vegetarian.

 

If you think about it, we broke the natural laws of nutrition when we started cooking things, are you a raw foodist?

 

Meat in reasonable portions can and is quite healthy even though I don't eat it. the Indians have been consuming dairy as part of a vegetarian diet for thousands of years. Yogi's are some of the healthiest people in the world.

 

The hunzas are a small group of people living in the himalayan mountains in pakistan I believe and they eat minimal meat, but some fo them live well past 100 on average.

 

If you are going to be a scientist about things then you have to be unrelenting, putting your personal beliefs aside an looking at the facts, meat is not dangerous no matter what you believe unfortunately.

 

I don't believe in consuming them for nutrition because I think that it's bad for the environment and it's unnecessary, not because it's dangerous. Here in America the place of McDonalds and microwaves, yes we have problems. We torture animals, inject them with hormones and antibiotics and we eat copious quantities of animal products with little to no veggies, that is bad.

 

There are two secrets to health. Getting plenty of nutrients to the cells and removing toxins from the body. Any diet in excess fat or cholesterol is bad. You can be unhealthy on a vegan diet if all you ate were mock meats and vegan cookies. It's our choices. Not eating meat is a personal choice not the standard in health, and until proven other wise that long life has to do with being vegan then I will have to disagree with you. A vegan diet is not perfect. B12 cannot be obtained from any plant source, without some negligible animal intake anemia would be a problem specifically for people that were vegan since they were babies. B12 supplements don't grow on trees, that's what's unnatural. If we were meant to be vegan then we wouldn't need unnatural man made b12 supplements to survive, that's why the yogi's include milk in their diet, because 5000+ years ago when the vegetarian savttvic diet appeared there were no b12 supplements.

 

Eating a diet with about 5-10% animal products, and the rest vegan is a healthy diet. My uncle god bless him is 98, and he eats like that. He consumes small amounts of dairy from his cows on his farm, and fish that he caught in the ocean. He lives in trinidad. He is in great shape, and still works.

 

I believe the ultimate source of protein so far is raw hemp, nothing beats it, but it's expensive and most people can't afford to use it as their primary source of protein, including myself. I don't think its' reasonable to think of dairy, eggs, or meat as dangerous food sources, well because soy isn't perfect either and vegans/vegetarians eat plenty of that.

 

I dont consume meat but having grown up in India have consumed dairy.

 

Arguments of veganism aside.. Chimpanzees and Gorillas eat minor quantities of insects & sometimes eggs.

 

I am not going to take potters side or gnosis. I think a 100% blind faith stance in any direction is probably not the best in my opinion.

 

With regards to minor 5-10% consumption of meat. I MYSELF DONT SUPPORT OR WILL CONSUME. That is my choice.

 

Then again, I think if I was on a pacific island with minimal sources of food, some form of animal product will enter the diet in some form (eggs, fish, crab, insects, meat).

 

So, I think there's some weight on that side as well - I would think the body BENEFITS a little bit from that. Again, I am not going eat any of it. But, I think there's always room for open thought & argument.

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I do think there are benefits to eating meat in the sense that someflesh(especially human although I'm not advocating it) is produced through processing foods we'd eat anyway and it means our bodies do less work, we also can get the benefits of the added hormones in the food(not good for you but it may make you stronger). Granted hormones in the food will very likely provide side effects in the future...they do make you stronger in the mean time, similar to what taking a small amount of steroids would do.

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I'll agree with you, there are exceptions to the rules. But as a society, okinawans are the healthiest people in the world, IN THE WORLD. The hunzas as a society are the longest living people in the world. They eat meat, with no cancer. The hunzas have never had one reported case of cancer in history. Is that the same for smokers? Yes there might be a couple who smoke like a chimmney and never get cancer but as a whole society of smokers they get cancer and emphysema on average. Hunzas have NEVER had one reported case of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or heart attacks. The hunzas on average live to over 100, that is the average.

 

Can you say that the average vegan or vegetarian age is 100!? The main thing is the hunzas eat 100% organic and get plenty of exercise. If meat was so deadly, they would have a great deal smaller of them living to 100. The secret to long life and longevity is caloric restriction. It's a proven scientific fact that the less calories your body needs the less your body needs to work. A slower metabolism creates longer life. I don't mean starving your self, the hunzas eat a lot, but they eat mostly fruits and veggies which have little calories. They eat a diet of whole grains, fruits, veggies, starchy veggies, and raw cottege cheese. They eat meat only on special occasions. I believe through their diet the reducing meat intake does increase life span, but they are not vegan and are the healthiest people in the world, this is a scientifically indisputable fact. In a survey of the long living Hunza, Pakistani nutritionist Dr. Magsood Ali found that their almost vegetarian diet had a very low caloric intake of 1923 Calories with 50 grams of protein, 36 grams of fat and 354 grams of carbohydrate, meat and dairy products constituting only 1.5 percent of the total.

 

This is not the guy who smokes a back a day anomoly. This is a society, a whole country of people. There is not a country of 400lb men living to 100, or a country of pack a day smokers living to 100. On average they die early.

 

What I am trying to say is that you can be healthy on any diet, meat or no meat. Meat can be healthy in small portions. It provides lots of protein, and yes some cholesterol, but eaten in small amounts provides necessary b12. Dairy can be quite healthy, I consume it daily in the form of raw yogur, kefir, and cottege cheese just like the hunzas.

 

Most vegans I know take a b12 supplement, I do not because I eat pasturer raised organic eggs from a local farmer (not factory raised) sparingly, and consume raw low fat dairy regularly. I have lost so much weight on thie diet. My cholesterol has gone way down to 80. My resting heart rate is 50. I exercise 5 times a day. I decided to try and model my diet after the hunzas, well because they are so healthy. I don't consume animal flesh, but I consider eggs meat.

 

I think that the vegan, vegetarian, or omni diets can be quite successful as long as you eat fruits, veggies, and beans as the staples in your diet, consuming meats, eggs, dairy, and sweets sparingly. there are lots of substances eaten in high portions that are quite unhealthy. Take sugar for example, it's vegan as long as it's not white, and you can get diabetes from OVER consumption.

 

Just like you can get cancer and heart disease from over consumption of meat. The body needs small negligible amounts of sugar as energy, just like it needs protein and b12 which can be obtain from vegetarian or meat sources.

 

Your comparison of tobacco to meat is not very good. Tocacco contains 0 nutrient value, that is not the same for meat. Not all vegan things are healthy, hell cocain is vegan it's not healthy at all. It all depends on quality and quantity. High quality organic pasture raised meat is much much healthier than factory farm raised meat. Just like organic soy is healthier than gmo non organic soy.

 

I think for long life, we should try to model our diets after the hunzas, even though I will stay vegetarian, they must be doing something right.

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...But as a society, okinawans are the healthiest people in the world, IN THE WORLD. The hunzas as a society are the longest living people in the world. They eat meat, with no cancer. The hunzas have never had one reported case of cancer in history...Hunzas have NEVER had one reported case of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or heart attacks. The hunzas on average live to over 100, that is the average.

 

unbelievable! no, really. that's un-believable.

 

sources from peer reviewed works, please.

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...But as a society, okinawans are the healthiest people in the world, IN THE WORLD. The hunzas as a society are the longest living people in the world. They eat meat, with no cancer. The hunzas have never had one reported case of cancer in history...Hunzas have NEVER had one reported case of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or heart attacks. The hunzas on average live to over 100, that is the average.

 

unbelievable! no, really. that's un-believable.

 

sources from peer reviewed works, please.

 

Just do a google search, there is tons of information about it. A lot of credit is given to their water, filled with alkaline minerals. Also apricots, and just general calorie restriction.

 

It seems to be true.

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also, even starting with the (frankly absurd) assumption that the Hunza (why is it always an exotic people in a far away land) live past a hundred on average, and have no diabetes, cancer, heart disease, ugly children, hang nails, or bad hair days, what sort of controlled research was done to determine the font of this unbelievable health.

 

maybe it's not their diet. maybe it's genetic. maybe it's the exercise they do. maybe it's despite the meat they eat, not because of it. maybe it's b/c they live proximal to yaks.

 

meat is bad for you. a little meat is a little bad for you. a lot of meat is a lot bad for you.

 

and alllllll this aside, eating meat is sick, wrong, and cruel. am i dogmatic? yes. utterly. i'm a true believer. there is nothing you nor anyone else can say, do, or show to make me think otherwise. of course, i'm also dogmatic about a heliocentric solar system, and firmly in the round earth camp.

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Just do a google search, there is tons of information about it. A lot of credit is given to their water, filled with alkaline minerals. Also apricots, and just general calorie restriction.

i did. but there's big difference between articles from the internets that the google gives you, and actual peer reviewed studies.

 

one thing that started my BS detector pinging was all the diet books on amazon touting the 'Hunza Diet', and the proximity of 'Hunza' with stuff like 'living water', 'coral calcium', 'miracle', and 'Tesla', not to mention its presence on abovetopsecret.com

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Just do a google search, there is tons of information about it. A lot of credit is given to their water, filled with alkaline minerals. Also apricots, and just general calorie restriction.

i did. but there's big difference between articles from the internets that the google gives you, and actual peer reviewed studies.

 

one thing that started my BS detector pinging was all the diet books on amazon touting the 'Hunza Diet', and the proximity of 'Hunza' with stuff like 'living water', 'coral calcium', 'miracle', and 'Tesla', not to mention its presence on abovetopsecret.com

 

I don't disagree with you at all, just saying information is out there. There's a lot of bs going around for health in general, so who knows. My bs meter went up when they mentioned 90-100 year old dudes playing violent rugby with 40 year olds...

 

I just do what feels right to me and leave it at that. I do believe in caloric restriction and longer lifespan though, just eating what you need, not excess.

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... I do believe in caloric restriction and longer lifespan though, just eating what you need, not excess.

that makes sense to me. and it looks to have science to back it up. i couldn't do it though. i like being full.

 

this guy i know had a gall stone or gall bladder attack or something.

the ER doctor gave him some morphine, and told him, 'you're going to have to stop eating greasy, and spicy foods, or this is going to keep happening.'

 

my associate told the dr, 'you better just take it out then, doc.'

 

that's how i feel about calorie restriction. eating massive amounts of good food is one of the few things i've got left, and i don't want to stop for another ten or twenty years of life.

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