Soy Ingredients

[David Sanders]

Hello coach Robert! What are the drawbacks to eating products with soy based ingredients? I'm speaking of whey protein and an oatmeal I eat with soy protein in it.

[Robert Santana]

Great question. So soy is a phytoestrogen, which is a plant based estrogen. It contains genistein and daidzein, which are a class of compounds referred to as isoflavones. Phytoestrogens act like estrogen (the female sex hormone) within the body so the classic concern is that eating too much may lower testosterone in males. However, the academics have not seen this in studies so I'm not sure that ingesting this orally is going to lead to alterations in testosterone and/or estrogen. It does have anti-carcinogenic properties though so that's a plus. In general, I wouldn't eat it as your primary source of protein but it's fine if you want to mix it in. We probably all eat soy without knowing it if we are eating a lot of commercially available food.

[David Sanders]

Thanks coach!! I ear 2 servings of protein enriched oatmeal every morning which gives me an easy 20 grams of protein. The ingredients annotate some type of soy protein and I've seen it as an ingredient for many whey protein powders. Based on your statement it seems soy is ok especially in such small quantities.

[Robert Santana]

Yep probably fine! Just keep eating and training and all shall be well

[JaredSterling]

As with many things, the soy scare started with single case highlighted in a 2008 report that a 60-something year old man developed breast tissue and experienced decreased libido after drinking a half gallon (or more) of soy milk every day for some long period of time. When he stopped, the symptoms resolved.

Found the report:

An unusual case of gynecomastia associated with soy product consumption. - PubMed - NCBI

It was 3 quarts of soy milk, with is one quart shy of a gallon, so he was almost doing GOSoyMAD!

[Robert Santana]

Definitely don’t do that.