The Bald Eagle flying before an Auburn football game, since I have no cool soy-related pictures....
She has a food allergy, which is a bit different, but she did a very good job at introducing the fundamentals of why soy maybe isn't so good for you. I do disagree with the GMO argument, but I'm a plant scientist (disclaimer: I am no way, no how a plant geneticist. I'm not smart enough.) and generally haven't found an anti-GMO argument that I really agree with anyway. So, start there.
Then, check out this page and have a read. I know it's not peer reviewed, there are no citations, and that it's a dot-com site. But as a plant scientist, I know that all of the soy-related arguments are factual, i.e. the types of flavonoids that are produced, the phytic acid argument, and definitely the part about how fermenting soy negates its toxicity.
So what I'm having trouble with is finding peer reviewed, layman's terms medical articles that link the soy plant chemicals to endometriosis. Oh, well. Based on the responses to this post, it's helped at least a few endometriosis sufferers. And if you suffer from endo, you know that in those moments of gut wrenching pain, anything sounds better than the current reality. So in a nutshell, that's why I'm giving it a shot.
A rainbow, from my husband's place of employment. See above note on non-soy related pictures..
And as a researcher, I have to be an equal opportunist. Here's a couple of articles/posts that say soy either helps endometriosis or has little effect:
- Effect of Soy Isoflavones on Endometriosis: Interaction With Estrogen Receptor 2 Gene Polymorphism Authors: Tsuchiya, Masaki*§; Miura, Tsutomu*; Hanaoka, Tomoyuki*; Iwasaki, Motoki*; Sasaki, Hiroshi†; Tanaka, Tadao†; Nakao, Hiroyuki‡; Katoh, Takahiko‡; Ikenoue, Tsuyomu§; Kabuto, Michinori¶; Tsugane, Shoichiro*
- This tested only 138 women in Japan, and they were all closer to menopause than I am.
- I couldn't link the article, but if you search for the title you can find the abstract for free.
- This guy is pretty skeptical on soy's affects on endometrial growth; however, in his defense, this post is old in the world of scientific discoveries....
So basically, if you're at the end of your 'treatment rope', so to say, then it might be worth trying. Based on some of the other reading I've done online (I won't fill the whole post up with links, you can google yourself), some ladies have to remove soy and wheat, some soy and dairy, etc. etc... It's just different for everyone. But I am now a firm believer than pain can be managed, if not controlled completely, through diet alone. Hopefully one day (soon) I can stop taking all of these oral contraceptives and further end copious amounts of hormones I'm putting into my poor body...
