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Home › Articles › Conditions Affecting Conception and Pregnancy › So Long to Soy During Conception?

So Long to Soy During Conception?

Some Studies Cast a Shadow of Doubt on Soy and Fertility

By Teri Brown

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New Findings on Soy
Despite soy's healthy reputation, a study released within the past few years casts suspicion on a food that has long been the health nut's staple. According to the study, conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in collaboration with an investigator at Syracuse University, genistein, a major component of soy, has been found to have a disruptive effect on the reproductive systems of lab mice. Because genistein is a natural estrogen that occurs in plants, it often mimics estrogen in the body. This can disrupt the body's delicate hormonal balance.

What does this mean for women? Can soy foods disrupt our own hormonal cycle, causing reproductive problems? Can giving soy formula to baby girls cause the same problems later in life?

Chapman believes there are serious flaws with the study. She says that in March of this year, a NIEHS Genistein and Soy Formula Expert Panel concluded that animal studies using pure genistein are not an appropriate measure for the safety of soy formula or soyfoods, and injecting or consuming a very concentrated source of one specific isoflavone, such as genistein, is very different from the way isoflavones are consumed in food and metabolized in the body.

"There are no human studies that suggest soyfoods are not safe," says Chapman. "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998-1999, after extensive review of the literature on humans, did not find evidence of adverse effects occurring in humans consuming soyfoods"


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