High soy diet during pregnancy may cause hormonal changes in fetus

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Link Between High Soy Diet During Pregnancy and Nursing and Eventual

Developmental Changes in Children

 

http://www.mercola.com/1999/nov/7/soy_and_children.htm

 

Two separate studies – one in animals and the other in humans – that

considered together suggest that a diet high in soybeans and other legumes

during pregnancy and breastfeeding may have a subtle but long-term impact on

the development of children.

 

Soybeans and other food-source plants contain compounds, called

phytoestrogens or isoflavones, which have been found to produce a variety of

mild hormonal actions within the human body.

 

Studies in recent years are confirming that the estrogenic effects of these

compounds may be beneficial in preventing or treating a variety of

conditions such as the unpleasant symptoms of menopause.

 

We are a very different creature when we are an embryo or a fetus or a child

or a teenager. We’re very different when we are a reproductive-age adult or

an aging adult.

 

At each stage, we have a different profile of risk or benefit. At the

beginning of the life span, when tissues in our bodies are being organized

in utero and in the first months of life, there is good reason to believe --

based on animal studies and in some human observations -- that sex hormones

are very important in getting things organized properly.

 

These hormones influence the way the brain is organized, the way the

reproductive organs and cells develop, even the way immune function

develops. Therefore, if mom is eating something or has in her body fat

something that can act like sex hormones, it is logical to wonder if that

could change the baby’s development. If there is an impact, is it positive,

negative or irrelevant?

 

To determine if unborn babies are indeed exposed to phytoestrogens, the

researchers analyzed amniotic fluid samples of 54 pregnant women from the

Los Angeles area. No phytoestrogens were detected in 11 samples, extremely

high levels were found in seven samples, and the remaining 36 contained

modest levels.

 

The study concluded that about 80 percent of the fetuses were exposed to

estrogenic isoflavones at concentrations ranging from 20 to 180 times the

levels of naturally occurring female sex hormones in the amniotic fluid of

female fetuses.

 

The amniotic fluid samples were taken during routine amniocentesis between

16 and 20 weeks of gestation – after a baby’s organs have formed but during

a critical stage of development.

 

The researchers used an animal model to begin to determine whether this in

utero phytoestrogen exposure might affect the organizational stage of the

fetus and the future development of the child. In a controlled study, they

fed pregnant female rats genistein, an isoflavone that is known to have

significant estrogenic properties.

 

The rat study was carefully designed to take into account the obvious

differences that exist in the developmental and life cycles of rats and

humans, and to correlate as closely as possible to the timing of the

amniotic fluid sampling. The mother rats were given genistein from day 14 of

gestation through post-natal day 21 when the rat pups were weaned.

 

Developmentally, this time period is almost exactly the same time that the

human amniotic fluid samples were obtained. The major steps of formation of

organs in the body occur early on, in both rats and humans. Therefore, the

treatment of the rats was intentionally delayed until major organ formation

had occurred.

 

The goal was to assess the effects of exposure on the developing organism,

and this is about as close as one can get to being able to take measurable

samples from humans and match them up with meaningful findings in an animal

model.

 

According to the results, the genistein fed to the mother rats had a

“masculinizing” effect on both male and female pups, based on the accepted

criterion of anogenital distance – the distance between the anus and

genitals, adjusted for the animal’s overall size. The lengthening of the

anogenital distance strongly suggests a relative masculinization of the

pups.

 

This may be caused by the anti-estrogenic properties of the genistein being

transferred through the mother’s milk to the babies or it is possible that

the mom’s intake of genistein changed the amount of her own steroids going

into the milk. That’s a little more complicated but if these compounds are

reducing the amount of hormones she’s producing, either from her ovaries or

her adrenal glands, it could have the same effect.

 

Male rat pups whose mothers received genistein also experienced early onset

of puberty. Normal puberty in a rat life cycle begins about two weeks after

weaning. Whatever the clocks are in the brain that control the timing of

puberty appear to have been advanced by a couple of days, which is highly

significant in this kind of animal model. It is known that sex hormones have

important organizational effects in primates in the second and third

trimesters of pregnancy through the first six months of life.

 

Studies have shown that altered male or female hormone levels at this time

of life in a rhesus macaque, for example, can change the timing of puberty

in males. Concern is based on the expectation that animal models will be at

least somewhat predictive of what occurs in humans. There is no reason to

assume that there will be gross malformations of fetuses but there may be

subtle changes, such as neurobehavioral attributes, immune function, and sex

hormone levels.

 

The researchers are seeking a grant to track outcomes of human babies for

whom exposure assessments have been made. There are many long-term health

questions that come about when the little clocks in our heads are changed.

There may be subtle things occurring and we don’t know it. Or it could be

that humans are much more resistant to these effects than are other animals,

and this is not an issue.

 

Researchers in the Center conducted the studies presented for Women’s Health

and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical

Center, The Centre for Toxicology at the University of Calgary in Canada,

and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University in North

Carolina. For media information and to arrange an interview, please e-mail

sandy or call 1-800-396-1002.

 

Third International Symposium on the Role of Soy in Preventing and Treating

Chronic Disease sponsored by the American Oil Chemists’ Society in

Washington, D.C. November 3, 1999. submitted by Michael Belkin

 

 

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DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

 

More early research that soy is not all that is cracked up to be. If you

have not read the soy article by Dr. Enig, I would strongly encourage you to

do so as it provides a broad overview of this topic.

 

It is also important to realize that soy formula should rarely if ever be

used for the above concerns. It is a potent negative hormonal influence on

developing children and may have significant adverse side effects. Soy

formula also has well over ten times as much aluminum in it as conventional

formula.