Does Soy Consumption Negatively Impact Male Sexual Development and Function?
The simple answer is that these projected “problems” with soy are all based on conjecture, with no actual human studies showing any detrimental effects of soy. Discussions about the safety of soy do occur on a number of websites, of which many offer links to scientific studies. Given the volume of research that has been conducted on soy and soy isoflavones, it’s not a surprise that some studies have shown negative results. However, the weakness of these “anti-soy” websites is that they focus on only a few studies rather than evaluating soy in the context of the body of literature supporting the health benefits of soy. This, in turn, can give consumers a skewed perception of the safety of soy and this simply causes more confusion than providing people with a truly balanced perspective. Because soy isoflavones exert estrogen-like effects, concerns have been raised that consumption of soy early in life (in utero or during infancy) might cause abnormalities in sexual differentiation and fe
