"Personally, I stay away from soy products. I imagine that vegetarians/vegans who use soy in some form, will be disturbed by the new study. Some might continue to use it, but there are no human studies that show soy to be beneficial in advanced PCa, & we now have a study that suggests it can accelerate growth. In any case, soy is not an essential part of a vegetarian/vegan diet, so why risk it?" pjoshea13
These are common reasons why flawed belief systems can take primacy over facts. I have seen some of that right here on this message board with respect to ********, dietary matters... and other subjects.
I must say I have never ever seen any evidence of any such flawed thinking with respect to Patrick's postings.... ever. LOL
In 4 oz. of Turkey there is only 2 grams of fat. I cook the Turkey dinner once a year. I say bring on the bird. Brother Ben Franklin wanted to make the Turkey the national symbol, and not the Eagle, for he thought the turkey was a very smart bird.
I don't think I have a confirmation bias with respect to any particular dietary behavior. But I definitely have a confirmation bias with respect to pjoshea13.
I would have to say you have muddied that up though.
Definitely the issues of (a) correlation vs causation, and (b) confounding variables do not help add any clarity to most studies.... other than FDA compliant clinical studies.
It would help if you and pjoshea13 were to reach a consensus opinion on the issue of soy isoflavones in the diet of sufferers of prostate cancer.
There does appear to be a plausible prostate cancer related reason to avoid soy isoflavones.
Is there any plausible countervailing reason to go out your way to include them in your diet? It seems that pjoshea13's point is that there is no such countervailing reason. It seems like you are saying there is one? If so, can you confirm what that reason would be?
It sure seems like you do not need soy isoflavones in order to have a balanced diet. So that can't be an adequate countervailing reason, can it?
The PCa & BCa studies that report a biphasic effect of genistein, etc, showed that these isoflavones are protective at pharmaceutical levels.
I am not against them & have used the old LEF Ultra Soy for years, but physiological levels seem to be dangerous. This was first reported in non-human studies, but we now have an actual study on men that seems to verify the other studies.
Do I have bias? Of course. Have I kept silent about similar studies that show physiological levels to be protective? I'm not aware of any.
What in your opinion constitutes "physiological levels" as opposed to "non-physiological levels"?
Looking at the LEF website, it seems that basically they treat LEF Ultra Soy as an estrogen substitute with cardiovascular and bone health benefits:
"Soy protein and isoflavones (phytoestrogens) have gained considerable attention for their potential role in promoting cardiovascular health. Clinical trials and animal studies showed that ingestion of soy proteins helps maintain healthy blood lipid profiles, including helping maintain triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol levels already within normal range.2-4
The three major isoflavones found in soybeans are genistein, daidzein, and glycitein. Other isoflavones found in soy include diadzin, glycitein, glycitin. Soy isoflavones exert both estrogenic and anti-estrogenic effects, depending on the tissue in which they are acting.5,6 They are structurally similar to 17-estradiol, a mammalian estrogen, and are thus called phytoestrogens. They also have non-hormonal effects, including signal transduction and antioxidant activity.7,8 Soy isoflavones may inhibit bone resorption and help stimulate bone formation,9 without the side effects of hormone replacement therapy."
"physiological levels" would be the range found in the diet.
Difficult to quantify. For the traditional fermented forms common in Japan:
"The median intake of daidzein was 12.1 and 9.5 mg/day among Groups 1 and 2, respectively, while the corresponding values for genistein were 19.6 and 14.9 mg/day. The top four foods (tofu, miso, natto, and fried tofu) covered about 90% of the population intake of daidzein and genistein." [1]
Non-traditional soy has a big presence in the U.S. food market. Who knows how much genistein one might get.
LEF's Utra Soy was (is?) part of LEF's PCa protocol 13 years ago, but the bottle label called for 4 x 5 daily. That was eventually lowered to 1 x 5. At the time, it seemed aimed at cancer patients. Anyway, it is a big dose.
"The median intake of daidzein was 12.1 and 9.5 mg/day among Groups 1 and 2, respectively, while the corresponding values for genistein were 19.6 and 14.9 mg/day. "
I once wondered why LEF would sell such a dose. Obviously, it is well above unsafe physiological levels, but I believe it was designed as a cancer supplement.
I do not have any issues against cannabis, and in fact am a supporter of it.
It is just that prostate cancer cells have a lot more cannabinoid receptors in them than non non-cancerous prostate cells. That means cannabinoids likely have some positive or negative effect on cancerous prostate cells.
And what little anecdotal I have (from Myers) would indicate that it may promote the growth of cancerous prostate cells.
That is enough for me to decide to put it off limits for me.
I am all for its legalization. I just don't think it is so wise for someone with prostate cancer to use it... unless they are at a point where their only remaining issue is end of life pain reduction.
Just my opinion... which I wish was better informed with reliable information from properly conducted clinical studies... but alas data of that quality is just not available.
As an aside, the AR-V7 at JH could not be done for they could not find any PCa circulating cells or there where not enough to do the test. Good news means low tumor volume.
Asians have less PCa than North Americans & Northern Europeans, but we don't really know why. Is it the traditional fermented soy products, the green tea, whatever.
As Dr. Myers has said, epidemiolgical studies are good for forming hypotheses, but they prove nothing.
It is said that Asians who migrate to the U.S. have a much higher rate of PCa. The assumption is that they embrace a Western diet. My experience is that immigrants do not abandon their traditional diets. What they find in the U.S. is a higher standard of living.
An exasperated PCa researcher who spent a lot of time on the diet subject, once concluded that "We might just as well have studied utility poles."
In fact, PCa rates are rising in Asia among the growing middle class.
In one Chinese study, the increase in risk was associated with a slight increase in pork intake together with a compensating decrease in white rice intake. Someone took that to mean that white rice is protective - I must eat more.
The new study is useful because it compares soy intakes in a Western population.
Could there be confounding factors? I think so. Committed soy eaters may have dietary patters quite distinct from non-soy eaters.
There seems to be some resistance to the study, but PCa & BCa cell & animal studies have been predicting the result for some time. A beneficial dose of the phytoestrogens is much higher than the dietary dose that might promote growth.
For goodness sake - we are talking about plant hormones that mimic human estrogen. Why would a man assume that phytoestrogens were ever a good idea at physiological levels?
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