How Soy Affects Women? Everything You Need to Know about Soy, Phytoestrogens and Estrogens!

Soy… the food that women associate with healthy eating and saving the world, by not eating animals, but still getting enough protein!

Good Lord, I don’t have a TV. But unfortunately I can not skip getting exposed to different “healthy” commercials. When I go to the supermarket I constantly encounter a new promotion of the “healthiest” soy milk, soy cheese, soy burgers and so forth.

As weird as it seems to me, there are a lot of people who are convinced that soy is the best diet option. But is it really?

Unfortunately for you, as always I am here to confuse you a little and hopefully provide you with a new point of view.

If you are a woman chances are that you know how important is your hormonal balance. When it is disrupted in some way, you have serious health problems, reflecting on your body image and your mood. So nobody wants a hormonal imbalance, right?

  Why is soy risky for your health?

In order tounderstand it you need to know what estrogens are, what is a phytoestrogen and what it has to do with soy.

Estrogen

As you may already know estrogen is a hormone. And what is the primarily function of hormones? They are chemicals in the body that have signaling functions or in other words they give “instructions” to your organs and cells what to do.

In order to understand it further, you should know that there are estrogen receptors, which play the role of “locks” and estrogen molecules, which are “the keys”.  What estrogen receptors do, is telling your hypothalamus and pituitary glands, how much estrogen is available in your body. So in order for the “lock”(estrogen receptor) to be unlocked it needs a key( an estrogen molecule). When the lock and the key interact, there is a signal send to your pituitary glands and hypothalamus, and the more locks get filled with estrogen molecules,  the more signals for estrogen availability will be send. Which eventually leads to a red light signaling that there is enough estrogen in your body, which in turn leads to another signal to your ovaries that you should stop producing estrogen!

So this is enough information for the estrogen. Let’s move on to phytoestrogens.

Everything You Need to Know about Phytoestrogens

Soy, together with some nuts and legumes is a potent phytoestrogen. Pythoestrogens are chemicals that by structure resemble estrogen, but by functions differ from it. Which means that phytoestrogens mimic estrogens, but can’t perform their functions. It is something like twins- they look alike, but they are totally different people, with different characters, and just because they look the same way, doesn’t mean that they act the same way. Probbaly not the best comparison, but that is the only thing that came to mind. 😉

Phytoestrogens are part of the category of xenoestrogen, which literally means FALSE estrogens. So that is another affirmation that phytoestrogens ain’t estrogens!

How Soy Negative Affects Your Body

So what does soy,phytoestrogens and estrogens have to do with your health.

When you eat soy products and other phytoestrogens, coming from vegetable oils, you are trying really hard to mess up your hormones. Why?

Remember the estrogen receptors and estrogen molecules? And the fact that even if it doesn’t function like estrogen, phytoestrogen resembles estrogen?

Just like you are probably gonna go astray which of the twins, is the one you know, estrogen receptors, go astray between real estrogen and phytoestrogens. What that means is that phytoestrogens can bind together with estrogen receptors. That in turn, will signal the pituitary glands and hypothalamus that you have enough estrogen and that will send a signal to your ovaries to down regulate the production of estrogen.

And where is the problem? That phytoestrogens can’t perform estrogen’s functions. So your body will be fooled that there is plenty of estrogen for its normal functioning, but in reality this is not the truth!

Thus, you end up with low estrogen levels, that will eventually lead to other hormones getting messed up, which in turn leads to your bad health and your terrible mood!

Do you still think that soy is healthy?

What is your oppinion about soy? Do you eat soy products and what is your experience with soy products?

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Here are some related posts to read:

What about Vegeterians

Female Hormones Finding Balance