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Comment by korethr | Hacker News Reader

This statement piques my curiosity. Why not?

There was been suggestions that soy consumption in men can reduce testosterone and increase estrogen levels. There has even been some research done in this area [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

[1] http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/16/4/829.abstract

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10798211

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11103227

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224

[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908338

'bro science' - apparently there's chemicals in soy that have similar names to estrogen. A bunch of people claim that's why Asians are 'less manly' or something. I've not seen any credible evidence that this is any more scientific than 'neuro linguistic programming' (or the idea that the average asian dude is 'less manly' for that matter.)

On a more personal note, I'm a big white guy who looks like a big white guy who was raised on more soy than your average Asian dude (hippy parents.) I call bullshit.

Your being a big white guy visibly unaffected by soy is strictly anecdotal evidence - perhaps you aren't affected by it.

The plain reality here is that we don't yet know the full effects of a diet high in soy has on the body, so I'd err on the side of letting studies come out with something more conclusive. In any case, shouldn't we be consuming within moderation anyways?

>The plain reality here is that we don't yet know the full effects of a diet high in soy has on the body

you could replace the word 'soy' with 'meat' or 'eggs' or 'bread' there and the sentence would be equally true, and equally useless.

Well, soy is a staple part of the traditional Okinawa diet, so it can't be that bad.

This is just a story but a friend of a friend who had been fed soy milk as a baby, developed all kinds of food allergies even from things like chocolate, sugar, etc. She can't eat anything!

Presumably due to the high phytoestrogen content of many soy products.

Food groups with decreasing levels of total phytoestrogens per 100 g are nuts and oilseeds, soy products, cereals and breads, legumes, meat products, and other processed foods that may contain soy, vegetables, fruits, alcoholic, and nonalcoholic beverages. Soy products contain the highest amounts of isoflavone, followed by legumes, meat products and other processed foods, cereals and breads, nuts and oilseeds, vegetables, alcoholic beverages, fruits, and nonalcoholic beverages. Decreasing amounts of lignans are found in nuts and oilseeds, cereals and breads, legumes, fruits, vegetables, soy products, processed foods, alcoholic, and nonalcoholic beverages.

from here - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16898863

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