Are We Experimenting on Our Children with Soy Formula? | Hacker News Reader

Are We Experimenting on Our Children with Soy Formula?

undark.org

51 pointsokket83 comments

That whole article is written like irresponsible click-bait journalism. After raising four kids I can take shit like this with a grain of salt, but as a new parent I would've freaked out and overreacted.

When two of my kids were babies they had bad reactions to normal formula, and weren't gaining enough weight with breastmilk. Soy formula was the only other option and not giving it to them likely would've been worse than any hormone issues.

One of my kids was allergic to soy and caesin (not lactose). So, we had to go on a hunt for low caesin/caesin free formulas, which aren't available readily in the US. We found this one called HiP organic which satisfied our need - it's a German brand.

It's "casein", not "caesin".

No, the other option was to ignore the pediatrician with his one size fits all weight gain curve and continue breastfeeding. We told our ped to talk to the hand unless they could demonstrate a REAL problem. Kid is the smartest 8-yo I've seen.

My daughter couldn't even have soy milk. Nutramigen is where we ended up for her. Stuff's expensive, but it worked well for her.

Same here. My son couldn't hold down a bottle. Soy was the only option for him and he turned out fine.

Yes.

The question is not are we experimenting - the question is what experiment are we running

Clearly worth investigation, but when I hear arguments about soy being a serious endocrine disruptor, I can't help but wonder about the hundreds of millions of people throughout Asia eating it daily...

There are two different kinds of estrogen receptors. Up to a certain amount of soy it affects mainly the receptors not associated with harmful effects. So a certain amount of soy per day is safe & healthy. But beyond that it can be problematic.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-soy-is-too-much/

It should be noted that feeding babies milk from cows is an "experiment" too and there's a lot of evidence it's not good for them.

Asians who eat much soy probably have evolved a different response to it than other populations. Similar to how northern Europeans evolved better lactose digestion than the rest of the world.

Probably? On what basis?

This is addressed explicitly in the article:

> Cultures with a long-time reliance on soy protein apparently realized this early, Patisaul adds. For instance, the compounds in soy are known to interfere with the body’s uptake of iodine, an element necessary for healthy functioning of the hormones produced by the thyroid gland. Chinese farmers first cultivated soybeans about 1100 B.C., so it’s not surprising, she notes, that many Asian diets gradually evolved to contain foods that contain extra high levels of iodine, such as seaweeds.

Many of the forms of soy eaten in Asia are fermented or otherwise chemically changed to the point that their negative effects could be less pronounced. Soy sauce, miso and natto are some of many examples.

Something to note is that 93 percent of soy grown in the United States is genetically modified [0].

[0]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-genetical...

Also worth noting what kind of GE we're talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_soybean

tl;dr: mostly pesticide resistance.

That has significant environmental/economic consequences, but those edits (probably) don't change how soy interacts with endocrine receptors.

Ive only heard of herbicide resistance, aka roundup ready. The bt modification (Cry1Ac protein from Bacillus thuringiensis), afaik, is itself a pesticide, or produces pesticide.

Edit: I suppose "pest" could refer to weeds and insects? I may have been thinking insecticide.

>That has significant environmental/economic consequences, but those edits (probably) don't change how soy interacts with endocrine receptors.

Pesticide resistant crops being completely doused in glyphosate right before harvest probably does have an impact on health though.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/ITX_2013_06_04_Seneff.pdf

Absolutely, but that's not isolated to soybeans. Plus we've been abusing toxic pesticides for decades - that's just greedy human shortsightedness.

I don't know how different the number is for the US specifically but around 85% of soy grown is used for animal feed. I don't know what the intersection of GMO and animal feed is, but anecdotally, a lot of the soy I see for human consumption is non-gmo.

But that raises the question of what soy's GMO status has to do with its affect on the endocrine system?

Is there any evidence to suggest that genetically-modified soy has higher or lower phytoestrogen content as compared with non-GMO soy?

Soy (and other crops) are modified to be resistant to pesticides and pests, so I presume it makes no difference for their phytoestrogen contents. For example, glyphosate ("Roundup") resistant crops are only modified to have a different version (which still preforms the same function) of the enzyme that would otherwise have been inhibited by glyphosate, IIRC.

Most animal feed is soy-based. What effect does that have? Also, why would a vegan/vegetarian be against breast milk exactly?

And finally: does anyone have any info on the effect of large soy consumption on males? I've been vegetarian for 6 months and trying to go vegan (mostly for past 1.5 months) so my soy consumption is at an all time high.

Thanks!

There are several studies on the effects of soy-based estrogenic effects on men; here are three:

Hormonal effects of soy in premenopausal women and men

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/132/3/570S.long

Effects of replacing meat with soyabean in the diet on sex hormone concentrations in healthy adult males

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

Effect of a phytoestrogen food supplement on reproductive health in normal males

http://www.clinsci.org/content/100/6/613.full-text.pdf

Thanks for the links!

Those vegans are the very few you read about in newspapers every 3 years. They became began for health reasons and take it to the extreme, and somehow manage to convince themselves that even breast milk is bad.

Nobody has actually met someone like that,yet they are the ones people think of when they hear the words vegan and parent in the same sentence.

On soy: depending on you estrogen levels soy can heighten you estrogen activity if it is low,or lower it if it is high due to the isoflavones (phytoestrogens) it contains.

Cows milk will definitely heighten your estrogen activity,even though most of those hormones doesn't survive the environments in our stomachs,because that estrogen is highly active even in humans.

On dairy and estrogen:

http://www.birdflubook.org/resources/Maruyama_2010_PI_52_33....

>Those vegans are the very few you read about in newspapers every 3 years. They became began for health reasons and take it to the extreme, and somehow manage to convince themselves that even breast milk is bad.

I had a friend who went vegan and whose BMI soon became noticeably underweight (6'2"/150#;198cm/68kg); his girlfriend was concerned and started making lots of desserts. Some cajoling from me and others convinced him to give it up. But vegan self-injury is not actually that rare in my experience.

Veganism as a means for eating disorders is pretty well known, but that is 1. A symptom of someone's sickly obsession with food and 2. Not really what I was talking about. Eating disorders by proxy would really be child abuse.

I have seen smart people go vegan and only eat salads with some occasional tofu and then conclude it isn't possible to be vegan since that apparently means "live off 500kcal/day".

When I hear the word "vegan" I think of a person that spends so much time thinking about food and nutrition science that they just have to tell you all about it.

They are one of my canaries in the metaphorical food safety coal mine. I am usually annoyed by all their incessant twittering, but if they ever actually fell silent, I'd be very alarmed.

In all probability, from what I think I know, the phytoestrogens from soy-based foods are far less concerning than the bisphenol-A (BPA) in food-contacting plastics and thermal receipt paper. My profiler says to take care of the biggest problems first.

The only reason I read about nutrition in general (and I can't say I am very knowledgeable about all possible effects of isaflavones) was that I was being constantly told by friends and family that I was going to die of whatever they imagined vegans died of.

On BPA: I just found my son half devouring a receipt, so yeah: hormonally disturbing parent of the year!

~Congratulations. You just guaranteed that he will grow up to wear a striped trilby, call it a fedora, and say "m'lady".~

~...To his anime character pillow.~

~...In your basement.~

~Best to just turn yourself in to child protective services now, you horrible, horrible monster.~

Don't worry, anti-vaccine parents are still worse than you.

There are a lot of studies on soy consumption. The short version is that soy is healthy up to a certain point, so it's fine to make it part of your diet as long as you don't overdo it.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-soy-is-too-much/

It's pretty common knowledge that soy contains phytoestrogens, which behave similar to estrogen.

They are similar to estrogen,but not as biologically active. If they bind to hormone receptors, they are just as likely to block biologically more active estrogens. Whether they make your estrogen levels higher or lower depends on how high activity you had in the first place.

It's less common knowledge that this is a myth.

Soybeans contain phytoestrogens. The myths, truths, and unknowns revolve around how phytoestrogens affect humans.

I know that. I read the article. What's the point of your comment other than restating the article premise? You answered none of my questions.

This article quotes a guy who thinks it had an effect:

http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects

>And finally: does anyone have any info on the effect of large soy consumption on males?

There are no effects on male biology across a range of parameters tested. There have been many studies done on the effects of isoflavone ingestion on men. Long-term studies on adult men show very little effect. There are in my opinion only two important unanswered questions:

* there are few to no truly long-term studies of soy isoflavone intake in adolescent and pre-adolescent boys, particularly at high levels of intake, although there is of course some ethical concern in running such a study. Some studies in young men have shown small effects ( http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/3/584.long ).

* studies do not tend to measure effects which are related to the genitalia and sexuality. In general, they only measure hormone levels, which are merely a proxy for real effects, and may not be a reliable one.

To address this problem I have been sort of sketching a small-scale machine that processes unshelled hempseeds into hemp milk or butter. Unshelled hempseeds are the only actual food (i.e. not an extract/powder) on store shelves with a high protein content that aren't soy or animal products and aren't crazy expensive. Shelling hempseeds mechanically, without crushing, is extremely difficult, but the kernel sinks in water, whereas the shell floats, allowing for a very easy separation if the seeds are crushed. That got off topic fast. Anyway:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sue_Duval/publication/2...

However, there are probably effects resulting from activation of estrogen receptor beta. The reason is that activation of ERB is known to suppress prostate cancer, and soy consumption also suppresses prostate cancer:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.21266/full

Studies do not generally look for behavioral effects of activation of ERB by soy isoflavones because of the difficulty of measuring those. However, in some cases, meat consumption actually resembles soy consumption:

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1400.long

>In conclusion, our data suggest that the ability of Caucasian men to produce equol is favorably influenced by the long-term consumption of high amounts of soy and the consumption of meat.

Since a great deal of animal feed is soy-based this phenomenon may have a simple explanation. However, dairy does not cause this effect (animals' bodies may be trying to avoid intoxicating their young).

A tangent from the article itself, but isn't the parenting itself an experiment?

So, is there another alternative besides soy and cow milk for feeding babies?

Human breast milk?

You know, as nature intended?

Of course. My daughter is 18 months old and fed exclusively with breast milk. We want to wean her soon, so we are looking for alternatives.

My son is 17 months and has been on zero milk or formula since around 12 months. We were weaning him already, but he went cold turkey by himself after he caught a 24-hour stomach bug and vomited milk all day...

We started with blended foods around 6 months I think, and added in small solid foods once he got teeth. At this point, we give him whole berries or veggie chunks and he'll take small bites and munch it down. He's getting some molars breaching now; once they fully emerge we'll start working on chewing larger pieces. I should probably not be as excited about this as I am...

As a parent, it is very exciting and a joy to see them grow and reach their milestones.

Solids and water?

at 18 months she should be ready to switch over entirely. Soy would not be appropriate for a child unless she has milk allergies. Feed her whole milk, it's incredibly important for her brain development.

You do realize that the push to condition consumers to a heavily dairy based diet is a result of industry lobbying, right?

No I don't. Source plz?

> Feed her whole milk, it's incredibly important for her brain development.

No, no it's not.

It absolutely is. We have evolved to eat cooked food and drink milk.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolu...

https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dairy-nutrients-health

http://www.idfa.org/news-views/media-kits/milk/importance-of...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2039733/

That NIH publication is interesting. Other than that these sources seem sketchy. Not to put a horse in the race, but if you're trying to argue that the milk lobby isn't responsible for the idea that milk is necessary for development, the people behind the food pyramid and the literal milk lobby are not the best sources to cite.

I don't know anything about the "milk lobby". What I do know is that Milk consumption started 5000 years ago, at the dawn of civilization. That is no coincidence.

Goat milk plus folic acid would be better for an infant 12 months or older than bovine milk.

Bovine and goat milks are unsuitable for infants under 12 months, because they contain too much protein in undiluted form, and not enough nutrition content when diluted to safe protein levels.

The dawn of civilization up until the industrial age fed human babies exclusively on their mothers' milk, or upon the milk of a human wet nurse. Those that could not feed in this manner died. It was very tragic, and it made a lot of people very sad.

Consuming bovine milk is not a critical step in human evolution. It's just a culinary choice. People also ate locusts back then. It didn't catch on as well, because cheese tastes better, and doesn't have raspy, sticklike hindlegs that get stuck in your teeth if you don't snip them off with kitchen scissors. You can certainly feed your baby pureed grasshoppers, but most people don't, because they are squeamish about insectophagy themselves.

It was not a dietary choice. We were lactose intolerant up until 5000 years ago. It was so useful to human survival that we quickly became capable of consuming dairy. Look up some life expectancy research

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722083720.h...

Woah I never said anything about feeding a baby cow milk! We're talking about an 18 month old here.

It's obligatory to mention it whenever talking about giving milk to infants. Besides that, if veteran parents don't make green parents neurotic about screwing their kids up for the rest of their lives, the industry that sells them books and useless crap might collapse.

Sure, and just like with grain and other staples dairy is a massive, profitable industry with public and government lobbying organizations, like the one you linked. I'm not picking a fight with you and have no qualms with dairy consumption, I'm just saying your sources are potentially just as biased as the wheat based food pyramid. If you're trying to convince people milk is healhy there's better options. And as far as necessary for civilization, it's not like every human society in history emerged cultivating cattle.

The fats in whole milk are, but you can get the appropriate fats from other sources.

Definitely, as you said - it's the fats, not the milk.

Since when humans need cows milk to develop their brain? Did you know that a significant part of the human population is lactose intolerant?

Since 5000 years ago.

How does she get things like Vitamin D or iron that breast milk is missing?

not OP but we were directed by our doctor to supplement with Vitamin D, which we do once daily. easy fix

I assume the parent poster means "in cases where a lactating mother isn't freely available."

Can you buy human breast milk?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_milk_bank

>Can you buy human breats milk

Yes - though it's a caveated "yes". In some places, selling human milk is illegal - but sharing it is not.

Not legally. There are underground exchanges and black markets, etc. La Leche League can hook you up.

Yes, legally.

Human milk can be obtained from a milk bank with a doctor's prescription[1] and sells for $3-5 an oz.[2]

[1]http://milkbankne.org/receive/

[2]https://lactationmatters.org/2013/11/08/why-is-donor-milk-so...

Interesting! We had looked into this before and found that it was difficult/impossible. I'm glad it exists!

Only 13% of mothers are able to provide breast milk for 100% of their child's needs for the first 6 months, according to NPR.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/09/23/22534912...

This is what is written in your link, "Only 13 percent manage to breast-feed exclusively for the six months that are recommended for a baby's health". If there was no formula do you think there would be a 87% mortality rate for babies?

It's a bit like how in the modern era where food access is abundant, it's seen as strange and unhealthy to fast. But somehow humanity survived before this access to food, at times not eating for weeks.

No. That's why wet nurses [0] were -- and in some areas still are -- a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_nurse

That source clearly states that only 13% do exclusively breastfeed their babies-- not can. It is common for women to "give up" on breastfeeding for a variety of reasons, but don't construe that as an inability to sustain their children's nutrition.

I think I understand the problem, but I think "able to provide breast milk" seems very open to interpretation. Babies are disruptive even before you have to pump or feed every 4 hours. But if you stop even a few times the body will stop providing milk. If your schedule doesn't support that (or you screw up occasionally) it will have a big effect.

However, that really means that you're not willing (ex a few percent who would have had dead children) to do what would have been required a few hundred years ago. Formula for a majority is a convenience... and has been since we used wet nurses and cow's milk.

There is no link you could possibly share to make that number make sense.

>intended

Awfully presumptuous.

Only if you are somehow ignorant of biology and evolution I guess?

Implying that evolution has 'intent' is pretty ignorant, yes.

By "formula" you mean fake milk?

No, formula is what we give babies that for one reason or another cannot be breastfed.

If soy wasn't being subsidized by the american tax payers would it be in so many products?

yep

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