Unless you haven’t read a health article in the last ten years, you’ve probably seen both sides of the debate pertaining to soy consumption and women’s health. It’s truly maddening (as is so much of the health news out there) to hear it is good for you one day, and then the next day it is the villain causing cancer. So much for trying to do the right thing and guard your health through reading articles! Same goes for eggs, coconut oil and all the other foods out there that are Jekyll and Hydes in wellness reports.

     Since this is such a vitally important topic when it concerns avoiding cancer or other serious diseases, please don’t leave it to chance or guessing. Do your research, ask your health provider and then if possible, get a second opinion. The information presented here is the results of my own findings to help me better understand why there are the conflicting reports out there, and NOT a recommendation for how YOU should handle your own health situation! I have dealt with health scares over the years myself (especially with breast health) and do my best to eat healthy and add things to my diet that increase my wellness and help avoid disease.

     It is important to understand that the information we see in articles on the web or in a magazine, popping up in newsfeeds and ads are very often paid for by companies or groups that have a personal interest in what is presented. This conflict of interest has an incredible effect on what you are allowed to know as much as what you are not told. An organization that could have billions in profits destroyed by damaging medical findings certainly isn’t going to take out ads promoting these new findings and may actually have researchers create ‘studies’ to counter those results in their favor. Again, facts and numbers can be easily manipulated and results worded carefully to make even something obviously unhealthy look saintly.  The best advice on reading nutrition and health articles is to check where the information came from, sources, and sponsors of the study. If the article stating “add beef to your diet to decrease your cholesterol” has 5 sponsors and 4 of them are beef farming industry groups, well, you can’t possibly view this as a truly unbiased report that covers all the facts!!  Also, beware some mini magazines that one gets in the mail or supermarket from hospital system groups or employers are often just cut-and-paste collections of news bites somebody pieced together off of the internet and these snippets can be taken out of context or be missing key points.  Use your common sense!

     First of all, let’s look at the soy debate concerning plant based estrogens or phytoestrogens, which soy products are rich in. They can act similar in the body to human estrogen. Different cancers especially those of breast or reproductive tissue can be hormone driven and estrogen clearly plays a part. Women enduring menopause symptoms are battling the sudden loss of estrogen and for decades were given estrogen replacement therapy to ease their symptoms and claims of protecting their hearts and preventing osteoporosis. I see articles cursing soy consumption because it introduces more estrogen to the body and since soy is fed to most livestock in CAFO operations, we are also consuming it secondhand. And then I see articles pushing a more natural approach to dealing with the discomfort of menopause recommending eating plenty of soy foods. (Other foods like flaxseed, lentils, yams, alfalfa sprouts and olive oil also contain plant estrogens.) What’s a lady to do? The most informative mini video I watched on this was through Dr. Greger’s Nutritional Facts. Org. Learning basic human biology about alpha and beta receptors in our body that absorb human estrogen and plant estrogens, which parts of the body house which receptors and decades of results in controlled studies REALLY educated me. Maybe a bit too deep for those of you who aren’t science geeks like me, but we need to be advocates for our own bodies and the more you know, the better your choices! My only personal thought is if you choose to eat soy always buy NON-GMO organic soy products so you aren’t ingesting chemical agricultural sprays or genetically modified soybeans. As with any food, the least processed form is the most nutritious, so green edamame, or raw soybeans which are easily found in most freezer sections shelled or in the pod are better choices than highly processed soy protein powder. The soy debate rages on, so do your research and as always seek advice from your trusted health providers about estrogen.