1 liter of soy milk per day completely supress testosterone.

[Princess Arabia]

I read somewhere once that soy milk increases estrogen. It increases chances of breast cancer, (Just saying what I've read before, not my findings). I personally don't drink it but only because I don't feel like and have no need to. I also read before that soy is best consumed in fermented form like tofu and to avoid edamame.

[Jannes]

15 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

I read somewhere once that soy milk increases estrogen. It increases chances of breast cancer, (Just saying what I've read before, not my findings). I personally don't drink it but only because I don't feel like and have no need to. I also read before that soy is best consumed in fermented form like tofu and to avoid edamame.

It's advised for women to eat tofu because it decreases the chance of breast cancer!! 

[Princess Arabia]

3 minutes ago, Jannes said:

It's advised for women to eat tofu because it decreases the chance of breast cancer!! 

Yes, I also read that, but I also read the opposite. Personally, I don't think it causes it. Here's a video on it. 

 

Edited September 26 by Princess Arabia

[Keryo Koffa]

On 6/29/2023 at 10:56 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

On 2/1/2024 at 1:22 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

On 2/14/2024 at 6:33 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

On 5/16/2024 at 4:44 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

On 6/4/2024 at 8:27 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

On 7/19/2024 at 6:07 PM, Schizophonia said:

Gnegnegne

On 8/2/2024 at 11:11 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

On 9/23/2024 at 7:55 PM, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

2 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

gnegnegne

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I can’t with this noise

On 9/24/2024 at 9:18 PM, Sugarcoat said:

gnegnegne

@Sugarcoat In that case let me blast the speakers full volume with @Schizophonia's mind-jam

There's also a GneGneGne song, gnegnegne Kris, Fortnite GneGneGne rap & Gnegnegne on acid

Edited September 26 by Keryo Koffa

[LSD-Rumi]

Some topics are best approached with an extra dose of skepticism considering how common myths are about them. The Soyboy alpha male propaganda is one of these.

[Sugarcoat]

8 hours ago, Keryo Koffa said:

@Sugarcoat In that case let me blast the speakers full volume with @Schizophonia's mind-jam

There's also a GneGneGne song, gnegnegne Kris, Fortnite GneGneGne rap & Gnegnegne on acid

Cool

[eos_nyxia]

How does drinking that much soy milk not give people the farts/ shits, lol.

Also: East Asian people would never.

Edited September 27 by eos_nyxia

[Leo Gura]

I had a girlfriend who got super horny from taking isoflavenoid soy supplements.

If you got a girlfriend, feed her a gallon of soy every day and you will be a happy man 

Edited September 27 by Leo Gura

[Schizophonia]

44 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I had a girlfriend who got super horny from taking isoflavenoid soy supplements.

If you got a girlfriend, feed her a gallon of soy every day and you will be a happy man 

Ahahah.

Did it make her irritable ?

 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Did it make her irritable ?

Not that I know of.

[Schizophonia]

11 hours ago, Keryo Koffa said:

@Sugarcoat In that case let me blast the speakers full volume with @Schizophonia's mind-jam

There's also a GneGneGne song, gnegnegne Kris, Fortnite GneGneGne rap & Gnegnegne on acid

I love karim debbache !

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Not that I know of.

Ok so much the better.

This is what i eventually would expect from a high estrogen state.

[Sugarcoat]

@Schizophonia what do you think of Bryan Johnson’s diet? The guy who tries to reverse aging

[Schizophonia]

46 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

@Schizophonia what do you think of Bryan Johnson’s diet? The guy who tries to reverse aging

It doesn't looks good and it's seems troublesome to be implemented, also Bryan has to be on HRT because of the calorie deficit to "decrease cell division" ; He can't maintain a healthy endocrine system and metabolism in general...

Then he does what he want i don't care but i don't want to worry too much about my food, it has to keep being easy and a pleasure so i will stick to my vanilla ice cream for now lol.

Edited September 27 by Schizophonia

[PsychedelicEagle]

Bryan Johnson sustains erections for as long as the titanic movie every night while sleeping.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, PsychedelicEagle said:

Bryan Johnson sustains erections for as long as the titanic movie every night while sleeping.

TMI

[Michael569]

20 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9593161/

This men drinked 1.2l of soymilk per day and has developped hypogonadism.

When he has completely stopped to drink it, his LH returned to normal and his testosterone increased from 12.6 to 565ng/dl in 5 months.

This is an interesting case study, haven't seen that one before. I mean the thing that immediately jumps up is "why would someone drink 1.2L of soy milk", right? . But it seems people do so let's play along. 

20 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

https://testonation.com/2023/06/12/soy-testosterone/

The study vs soy isoflavones in soy milk on average 

In the case study on NCBI they say: The patient had been consuming approximately 1.2 L of soy milk per day for around 3 years until he had stopped June. The estimated isoflavone content of this amount of soy milk was 310 mg/day, according to the nutrition facts label.

This is an interesting finding. According to USDA ARS  - database source   (I'd consider that a reliable source), you have about 7.85mg of soy isoflavones per 100ml of "soy drink" (page 24, line item, 99043). If you multiply this by 12, you will get about 94.2mg of soy isoflavones per 1.2l of soymilk. 

The study says 310mg in about 1.2L , which works to be about 26 mg of isoflavones per 100 ml. This is about 3 times the amount of isoflavone as a common soy milk (soy drink, item 99043). Immediately, this tells me that what he drank was some sort of concentrated formula like a fortified soy drink or a soy protein or something with added isoflavones. Maybe it was recommended to him for prostate cancer risk...who knows? We don't care. 

The conclusion is - what this guy was drinking was NOT a soy milk. An whatever it is, it was not supposed to be drank at those volumes. It was stupid and he paid the price. Its like giving your baby 3 times the recommended baby formula every day. Its gonna lead to some weird stuff. 

So yes, I agree with your conclusion @Schizophonia that at such humongous amounts, soy isoflavones can be some nasty effects on your endocrine system. Too much of a good thing.

How much soy isoflavones do you get from diet? 

Going back to the USDA database, let's say an average soy consumer would eat 200g of tofu per day, 1 teaspoon of miso with soup and 250ml of soy milk with coffee (I'm making these numbers up) 

• 250mg tofu - the values seem to differ but I've picked line item 99529 with 22.05mg per 100g portion. - total (2.5*22) = 55 mg 
• miso - 1 teaspoon  - line item 16112, 89mg / 100 mg so say a teaspoon is about 4 grams so you get basically less than 1mg of isoflavones 
• and then soy milk we already talked about 7.85mg * 2 = about 16mg 
• total daily soy intake - 55 + 1 + 16 = 72mg 

I am also assuming that this person goes up and down right? They don't drink the same thing. Sometimes they drink oat milk. Sometimes they eat tempeh instead of tofu or maybe even chicken or pork if they're not vegan. So let's say they average out at 65mg of isoflavones per day? That means it would take this person between 4-5 days to achieve the same volume of isoflavone as the guy in the study. 

So I would say that in normal amounts, you're unlikely to see soy having effects on testosterone. But in excess for a long time, such as what this guy did, it may be too aggressive, and your testo might start going down indeed. But it seems to go away once the food is discontinued. 

It was interesting to see him developing gynaecomastia tho, I wonder if this was from the soy drink or not. I'd like to see more on this. 

(for anyone who is confused about this) Soy isoflavones, phytoestrogens, oestrogens and hormones - what's the difference

Soy contains molecules called phytoestrogens. Phyto - meaning plant and oestrogen being the main mammalian sex hormone in women (and to some degree in men) responsible for sexual maturation, puberty,  menstrual cycle, development of secondary sexual characteristics, etc. In men oestrogens play a role in sperm production for example. 

When looked at under an electron microscope, the molecule of phytoestrogen looks almost exactly like the oestrogen that the human body produces. Phytoestrogens are divided into a few classes such as isoflavones, stilbenes, coumestans etc.

For this example we only need to talk about soy isoflavones as those are found in soy. 

 

Why is it said that soy is bad and causes cancer? 

We know from the evidence that certain cancers like breast cancer and ovarian cancer in women are strongly driven by excessive oestrogen in circulation. This is because these tissues have a high concentration of Oestrogen Receptors Alpha, and most biological oestrogens dock into these receptors.

In a growing woman, this is desirable. The expression of Oestrogen Receptor Alpha (meaning when oestrogen docks into it) helps cells divide, increases tissue growth, and increases the speed of sexual maturation. It helps a young woman hit puberty, grow breast tissue, trigger the menstrual cycle and prepare for future pregnancy. 

Where oestrogen starts becoming problematic is when it is very high later on in life such as during 30s 40s and 50s. Because excessive stimulation of Oestrogen Receptors Alpha can stimulate growth of tissue and whenever that happens, the risk of cancer goes up. 

And because soy isoflavones look like oestrogens, it was thought that if we have more of them in the body, it will be the same as having more biological oestrogen. 

Which is not true because of ....Oestrogen Receptor Beta 

It was found that although soy isoflavones look like oestrogens, they primarily dock to Oestrogen Receptor Beta. Different from Alpha. A docking to this receptor is associated with reduced growth of tumours, reduced inflammation and generally protective effects against cancers.

This is also how Tamoxifen, a common medication for Breast Cancer patients, works as well and it is why it is so incredibly effective. 

Soy isoflavones from tofu, tempeh, soy and miso do exactly the same and this is why they are considered protective. 

It is why: 

• isoflavones reduce risk of breast cancer
• isoflavones reduce risk prostate cancer - because soy reduces DHT levels in men and also because of beta receptor stimulation
• isoflavones reduce risk of lung cancer  because Beta receptors are also found in lungs 
• isoflavones reduce risk of gastrointestinal cancers and colorectal cancers

Consider that many of these studies are done in Asian populations where soy has been consumed for centuries and cancer development has only increased after introduction of western food 

Soy and Testosterone 

This one is a bit more tricky and I need to dance carefully around this topic because there is very little research. Most research on soy is done on women and older men because that's where those effects are very beneficial and where soy can help save lives. 

 Judging from that study shared in this thread it would seem that extremely high amounts of soy isoflavones can start reducing levels of testosterone to critically low. I agree that this is probably happening. 

But what about in moderate amounts?

• This is  one of the most popularly quoted study
  • 28 Japanese volunteers were fed 60mg of soy isoflavones per day (this correlated with the average intake calculation I made early on for the average person who consumes some soy) 
    • Their Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG) increased 
    • Their dihydrotestosterone (DHT) decreased 
    • their free testosterone decreased 

What likely happened here is a cascade of processes. Because isoflavones increased SHBG, this led to reduction in Free Testosterone because SHBG is like a bus for sex hormones, it takes away sex hormones from circulation and stores them safely. This also probably caused reduction in DHT because the more free testosterone you have, the more of it might be converted to DHT. 

It would seem like a bad thing but consider that high levels of DHT are linked to male pattern baldness and prostate cancer. I would argue having less DHT is a good thing. You could say that although these men lost a little bit of their "peak masculinity" by losing some free testosterone, it was traded for reduced DHT which most sane men would probably want. 

Unfortunately we don't have any good long term research on regular amounts of soy and levels of testosterone so I'll continue to err on the side of caution but the bits we have seems to indicate protective effects but potentially detrimental in very very high quantities. 

Soy Sauce 

One caveat of all this is soy sauce which I don't consider to be a proper soy food. Soy sauce is heavily modified food stripped of the isoflavones with extreme sodium content. So this is one that should be consumed in very very small quantities. 

 

CONCLUSION TO THE FULL POST 

• soy contains molecules called soy isoflavones which under microscope look like human oestrogens. It used to be thought that because of this, soy causes cancer because excessive amounts of oestrogen has been linked to breast cancer and other malignancies in women 
• oestrogen is needed for sexual maturation and sexual development but having too much can be problem for women and men 
• humans have two main oestrogen receptors alpha and beta 
  • alpha expression - stimulates cell  growth, increases cancer risk 
  • beta expression - protects from cancer, reduces inflammation, halts cell growth 
• Human oestrogens mainly dock to Oestrogen Receptor Alpha - can be harmful in excess
• Soy isoflavones mainly dock to Beta (the good ones) 
• health effects of soy roducts 
  • consumption of soy linked to reduction of cancers (lung, colorectal, breast, prostate, ovarian) 
  • soy has also been linked to reduced risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease 
  • soy is a great source of protein and calcium for people who don't eat animal produce 
• potentially negative effects 
  • in very high quantities , such as in the study listed where a man drank 1.2 litre of soy concentrate, there is documented negative effect on testosterone and the entire sex hormone system (HPG - Axis). This effects improved once he discontinued 
• effects on testosterone in men 
  • in very very high quantities, testosterone is reduced temporarily 
  • in normal quantities (ca. 60mg of isoflavones) 
    • DHT goes down - DHT is an agressive form of testosterone responsible for sexual development of boys into men. However in older men high DHT is linked to prosatte cancer and baldness. , in older men, high DHT is linked to prostate. So less DHT is a good thing. 
    • SHBG goes up. SHBG is a shuttle transporter for sex hormones. This is good because we don't want unbound testosterone circulating around. Very high amounts of free testosterone can lead to higher DHT (conversion from testo to DHT is also defined by genetics and many other things) 
    • free testosterone slightly reduced (this is mostly not an issue) 
    • no evidence on long term reduction of total testosterone levels 
    • soy does not turn men into fluffy soyboys who can't get erections. That's a bro science bs and at this point anybody claiming this is just trying to sell you something or is out of touch with the evidence. However men should not be consuming extreme amounts of soy like litres of milk per day or 5 blocks of tofu per day - too much of a good thing can become bad for you. Enjoy your tofu and your steak but don't be a zealot about one or the other. 

One additional thing I'd say is that there is a lot of testosterone optimisation content out there but anybody selling you testosterone-spiking lifestyle/product/diet should be able to answer the following questions: 

• can you guarantee that my DHT won't be going up 
• can you guarantee that my free testosterone won't be going up? 
• can you guarantee that my risk of prostate cancer isnt going up 
• can you show me the evidence that having more testosterone (above average) gives me some exceptional health benefits? 

Sorry for a long post but wanted to address this properly. Hope this will help someone. 

 

Edited September 27 by Michael569

[Sugarcoat]

4 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

It doesn't looks good and it's seems troublesome to be implemented, also Bryan has to be on HRT because of the calorie deficit to "decrease cell division" ; He can't maintain a healthy endocrine system and metabolism in general...

Then he does what he want i don't care but i don't want to worry too much about my food, it has to keep being easy and a pleasure so i will stick to my vanilla ice cream for now lol.

What has hormone replacement therapy to do with decreasing cell division? Enlighten me if you want

yea i agree it seems he doesn’t eat that much, and it’s all plant based I thought he would be omnivore. Doesn’t look too appetizing either 

and he takes a bunch of supplements seemingly to compensate for the diet idk. He said he took over a hundred a day 

vanilla ice cream is bomb👍🏻

Edited September 27 by Sugarcoat

[mmKay]

2 hours ago, PsychedelicEagle said:

Bryan Johnson sustains erections for as long as the titanic movie every night while sleeping.

How do YOU know? 🤔

Just the fact that he's on a chronic calorie deficit can screw up his libido

Personal take though 

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, Michael569 said:

The study says 310mg in about 1.2L , which works to be about 26 mg of isoflavones per 100 ml. This is about 3 times the amount of isoflavone as a common soy milk (soy drink, item 99043). Immediately, this tells me that what he drank was some sort of concentrated formula like a fortified soy drink or a soy protein or something with added isoflavones. Maybe it was recommended to him for prostate cancer risk...who knows? We don't care.

1)The more simple would be that the information about isoflavones in the carton content was wrong. 

Btw there are other similar cases :

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33818045/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21353476/

 

2)Even if isoflavones was added, it would be the prove that isoflavones are strongly estrogenic and can even stop HPTA axis of some reasons (sensitivity and bindings duration in the pituitary gland, something like that i guess).

1 hour ago, Michael569 said:

Going back to the USDA database, let's say an average soy consumer would eat 200g of tofu per day, 1 teaspoon of miso with soup and 250ml of soy milk with coffee (I'm making these numbers up) 

• 250mg tofu - the values seem to differ but I've picked line item 99529 with 22.05mg per 100g portion. - total (2.5*22) = 55 mg 
• miso - 1 teaspoon  - line item 16112, 89mg / 100 mg so say a teaspoon is about 4 grams so you get basically less than 1mg of isoflavones 
• and then soy milk we already talked about 7.85mg * 2 = about 16mg 
• total daily soy intake - 55 + 1 + 16 = 72mg 

I am also assuming that this person goes up and down right? They don't drink the same thing. Sometimes they drink oat milk. Sometimes they eat tempeh instead of tofu or maybe even chicken or pork if they're not vegan. So let's say they average out at 65mg of isoflavones per day? That means it would take this person between 4-5 days to achieve the same volume of isoflavone as the guy in the study. 

So I would say that in normal amounts, you're unlikely to see soy having effects on testosterone. But in excess for a long time, such as what this guy did, it may be too aggressive, and your testo might start going down indeed. But it seems to go away once the food is discontinued.

 

You can be hypogonadal all day, and if you metabolize isoflavones well, find normal LH and therefore testosterone levels in the morning on an empty stomach, so when you go to have your blood test.

1 hour ago, Michael569 said:

It was interesting to see him developing gynaecomastia tho, I wonder if this was from the soy drink or not. I'd like to see more on this. 

 

That gets reversed once he stopped consume soy.

1 hour ago, Michael569 said:

Why is it said that soy is bad and causes cancer? 

We know from the evidence that certain cancers like breast cancer and ovarian cancer in women are strongly driven by excessive oestrogen in circulation. This is because these tissues have a high concentration of Oestrogen Receptors Alpha, and most biological oestrogens dock into these receptors.

In a growing woman, this is desirable. The expression of Oestrogen Receptor Alpha (meaning when oestrogen docks into it) helps cells divide, increases tissue growth, and increases the speed of sexual maturation. It helps a young woman hit puberty, grow breast tissue, trigger the menstrual cycle and prepare for future pregnancy. 

Where oestrogen starts becoming problematic is when it is very high later on in life such as during 30s 40s and 50s. Because excessive stimulation of Oestrogen Receptors Alpha can stimulate growth of tissue and whenever that happens, the risk of cancer goes up. 

And because soy isoflavones look like oestrogens, it was thought that if we have more of them in the body, it will be the same as having more biological oestrogen. 

Which is not true because of ....Oestrogen Receptor Beta 

It was found that although soy isoflavones look like oestrogens, they primarily dock to Oestrogen Receptor Beta. Different from Alpha. A docking to this receptor is associated with reduced growth of tumours, reduced inflammation and generally protective effects against cancers.

This is also how Tamoxifen, a common medication for Breast Cancer patients, works as well and it is why it is so incredibly effective. 

Soy isoflavones from tofu, tempeh, soy and miso do exactly the same and this is why they are considered protective. 

It is why: 

• isoflavones reduce risk of breast cancer
• isoflavones reduce risk prostate cancer - because soy reduces DHT levels in men and also because of beta receptor stimulation
• isoflavones reduce risk of lung cancer  because Beta receptors are also found in lungs 
• isoflavones reduce risk of gastrointestinal cancers and colorectal cancers

 

Yes but ORB is still oestrogenic and HPTA suppresive.

+ DHT and metabolites (androsterone and androstenediol) have benefits for cognition, bones and muscles mass, libido, and even to antagonise oestradiol (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022473183911287 )

If soy delete DHT by 5ar as propecia it will also delete 5a-DHP and Allopregnenolone.

 

 

[Michael569]

31 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Btw there are other similar cases :

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18558591/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33818045/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21353476/

All individual case studies , children who were probably fed too much soy by parents. That's obviously a bad idea. 

I'm more interested in protective effects of soy against chronic disease, some of those meta analyses I listed had over 5,000  - 10,000 participants. No to mention case studies are at the bottom of hierarchy of evidence for a reason. 

Still....very interesting to see that effect on kids in excess. Good learning lesson for sure

31 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

You can be hypogonadal all day

dude hypogonadism is a medical diagnosis usually resulting from testicular trauma, testicular cancer or undescended testicles in boys. I think we are throwing around the terms a bit too freely. 

If what you mean is lower levels of testosterone then I'd want to see that in long term adult studies. 

31 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

That gets reversed once he stopped consume soy.

good to know! Lots of men do have gnaecomastia who don't eat soy. I mean you see guys with manboobs all the time so clearly there is more going on. Simply being obese is likely a risk factor for it. 

31 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Yes but ORB is still oestrogenic and HPTA suppresive.

ok so if that was the case, what would that mean? People who consume soy products become ...what? 

Look I know you have a great interest in endocrinology and I appreciate you have a good knowledge on it. I would even encourage you to go study something related to it. It is a fascinating subject and it was one of my favourite when I studies as well. 

But I think that's also become a bit of a barrier because you tend to be overly reductionstic seeing everything through the same lense. Endocrinology is tempting to use as an argument because it involves a lot of terms people don't understand that you can just throw around. But that won't fly here. If you are discussing the science you need to follow the hierarchy of evidence not randomly throw around endocrinology terms and pathways. 

You have to ask yourself - "if A causes B" then clearly most people who consume A regularly do get B? Do they? What's the evidence? Where is it? 

If I say a pathways XZY does this and then you say no, there is also pathway ABC that does the opposite. Who is right? How can we tell? That's why you have human outcome data. 

Edited September 27 by Michael569