Natural Medicine

» Victoria Anisman-Reiner - Your Experience With Soy

What's your experience with soy? Has drinking soy milk or eating more tofu helped, made hormone-related symptoms worse, or neither?

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» Dawn M. Smith - Your Experience With Soy

In response to Your Experience With Soy posted by OilsDragon:

In my training in TCM I learned a great deal about dietary factors. One things that may affect how the phytoestrogens in soy products work (or don't) for a particular woman is digestibility-westerners lack an enzyme which Asians have that aids in digestion of soy. Women should note how they feel 1 hour after ingesting soy. If they feel bloated or uncomfortable, they may not be digesting it properly and would be better with other plant sources of estrogen. For some it may be just the right thing.

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» Victoria Anisman-Reiner - Your Experience With Soy

In response to Your Experience With Soy posted by dmsvn:

Thanks for your comment, Dawn. That's something I hadn't heard before. I knew that lactose intolerance was widespread in Asians but hadn't correlated the two pieces of information - but a difference in enzymes certainly makes sense.

In your experience, does enzyme supplementation help?

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» kam197 - Your Experience With Soy

In response to Your Experience With Soy posted by OilsDragon:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your article entitled, Soy May Disrupt Hormone Balance. Everything now makes sense. About 5 years ago I was told (not by an MD) that I should discontinue dairy products for my chronic fatigue syndrome. So I switched everything to soy products. I just realized that was around the same time I started getting PMS (irritability, especially) for the first time in my life. Given my age (I am now going on 45) and some indicative results from a saliva test, my doctor assumed I was pre-menopausal and put me on progesterone. The progesterone helped somewhat but I recently started getting menstrual cramps (which I haven't had in a long time) along with bloat and stomach upset almost immediately after drinking soy milk. Low and behold, I just realized that I recently switched from a 'non-gmo soy milk' to one that wasn't so. I've also had some serious PMS this past month. (FYI - I also discovered a while back that frozen soybeans gave me a stomach ache). Where this leaves me as far as what to put on cereal, I don't know but I am thrilled to have solved to mystery.

-- posted by kam197

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» Victoria Anisman-Reiner - Your Experience With Soy

In response to Your Experience With Soy posted by kam197:

Hi Kam,

I'm glad you found my article helpful! I'm writing, ultimately, for people like you and I'm always glad when information gets to the people who need it.

As for an alternative to milk that doesn't involve soy... I use goat's milk yogourt on my cereal - goat's milk is easier for most people to digest than cow's milk because the proteins are more similar to those in human mothers' milk. The milk itself has a not-terribly-pleasant taste, but I enjoy goat's milk yogourt and cheese.

For pepople who can't tolerate goat's milk, either, I suggest rice milk (on occasion, since it's hard to balance carb cereal with carb milk) or fruit juice - a relatively low-glycemic fruit juice dilute with a bit of water.

Since none of these are probably ideal for you, you might try hot cereal that wouldn't require milk, cooked with just water, particularly if you can include ingredients that are alkalizing and will help balance your body.

Best wishes,

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