Jay Feldman 0:04
Welcome to episode 88 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for a long time now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. In today's episode, we will be digging into a study that is focused on soy, and in particular, we'll be discussing the hormonal effects of various compounds in soy. We'll be discussing how the effects of BPA compared to soy, whether soy is estrogenic and causes infertility, and whether the amount of soy typically consumed is sufficient to create the various hormonal effects. And much like episode 83 this episode is a bit of a different format, where we're going to be walking through a particular study and evaluating its claims and extrapolating and exploring different concepts related to those claims. So let us know what you think in the comments, if you're watching on YouTube, or you can send an email to me at Jay, at Jay Feldman wellness.com and let me know what you think of these sorts of episodes, and if you'd like us to do more in the future, the feedback from the last episode was pretty positive. So we'll keep mixing in some episodes like this one. If you are new to this podcast, then I'd highly recommend, after listening through this episode, you head back to episodes one through seven, where we took some time to build a foundation as far as the bioenergetic view of health goes. To check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we reference throughout today's episode. And if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, maybe these are hormone related symptoms, related to estrogenic effects or decreases in various reproductive hormones that may or may not be related to soy or various other related factors, or if you're dealing with any other low energy symptoms, whether that's chronic cravings and hunger, fatigue, joint pain, weight gain, digestive symptoms, brain fog, issues with sleep or insomnia, or various other low energy symptoms or chronic health issues that head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll explain how these different symptoms and conditions are really caused by a lack of energy. And I'll also walk you through the main things that you can do from a diet and lifestyle perspective to maximize your cellular energy and resolve these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

All right, so in our last episode, dissecting some research, a study, we went through a study that was really pointing out some of the flaws in the calories in calories out theory and idea. And in the studies we'll be going over today. We'll be talking about again, other aspects of food intake that are not directly related to calories and calories out or or interfering with it, but that support, or, I guess, our support against the notion of calories and calories out, but just highlighting some other aspects of food that aren't often discussed that obviously have huge impacts on our health and yeah, so let's, let's dig right in.

Mike 3:45
Alright, so we have three studies today. They're all going to be a little bit shorter, but they go over the effects of different food compounds on different portions of physiology. So this first one is effects of soybean extract, BPA, Bisphenol A and 17 beta stratiol on the testes and circulating levels of testosterone and a stratiol among peri pupiro juvenile male Sprog dolly rats. So we're not looking at calories here. We're not looking at partitioning of different of energy throughout different portions of the body. We're looking at the effects of compounds within our food on our hormonal profile. And we don't have time to cover all the studies today, but if you ever do look at the effect of testosterone on the body you'll see, you know, increases in muscle mass, decreases in fat mass, and overall change in body composition, depending on dosages and how long you're using it, etc. Even at a even at physiologic levels or levels that you'd normally produce in the body, there are pretty significant differences or effects. Of testosterone. So we're going to see, and this becomes important, because when we what we've talked about, what we talk about, or have talked about in the past, that the hormones have a really potent effect on your body composition, your physiology overall. So if you have some type of compound, like like a soybean extract or BPA, or this is exogenous estrogen. If it's a shutting down your testosterone production, you will see changes in body composition. You will see an effect overall, so regardless of calories in, calories out. And so this study is going to be an example of some of these effects. And so as we go through there's, I have a couple highlighted areas I'll read for you guys. And then we'll go over some of the some of the charts and whatnot. And then we have some pretty pictures over here. So this they'll be, there's three studies all going over different portions, and they should be pretty quick. So they start here, and they say, In a study conducted by yalai et al, 2002 levels of genistein, compared to concentrations found in soya milk, baby formula were capable of producing thymic and immune abnormalities in mice. So we see that soy baby formula is able to establish some type of immune disruption in mice. And another study done by Gallo et al on soya extract showed that is capable of causing uterine effects such as increase in weight, edema, endothelial hyperplasia and leukocytic infiltration. It also caused vaginal effects such as inflammation, hyperkeratosis and dyskeratosis and alterations in follicular size of the ovaries. So what you're seeing here is that soy extract was able to induce effects inside the uterus and the vagina that were equivalent or similar to the effects of estrogen. And this is quite important. And there's a reason why the soy here is being compared to BPA and 17 beta strategy. All is because the soy has estrogenic effects, and that's what the researchers wanted to look at. And so all this introductory stuff is just giving us a setup and some of the effects the results were supported by padasol et al 2006 which showed that a Soyuz supplement acts as an estrogen and antagonist on both proceptive and receptive behavior in female rats. Also showed that phytoestrogens have a suppressed effect on lordosis and estrous cycle and female rats. So in this sub, in this study here, they're showing that it seems to have an anti estrogenic effect. So in either way, we're showing an effect on hormones, and as we get down further, we'll we'll start to see but the the research isn't fully set per se on all of the different effects and so, but we do know that soy, in general, has a hormonal effect on the on the body overall.

Jay Feldman 7:52
Yeah. So just to bring some context here, I know you mentioned this. You know the effects of hormones in terms of body composition. Of course, every series that we've done so far, discussing liver health, autoimmunity and on from there, you know, thyroid activity, all those things, the hormones, play a major, major role. And so not only is this relevant to body composition, but as they're discussing, there's there's reproductive effects, and these things can also affect, for example, vulnerability to autoimmune conditions and other issues farther down the line. And the other piece of context, I think, is important here, is just not only how ubiquitous soy is where it's being used in everything, and they're talking about it in baby formula, which is obviously something that should be considered when you consider that it is having hormonal effects. And this is something given to a developing toddler and, or, you know, very, very young baby. And so obviously, there's this study is going to be bringing some questions as to whether we should be using soy in baby formula, and whether baby formula is a is a good idea to be using in general. And then, of course, the use of soy in as a, you know, which is already used in huge amounts throughout the food supply, as a health food, sold as protein powders, sold in protein bars, and then also used in various processed foods. So, yeah, there's some some overarching context here that that gives some weight to the findings in the study.

Mike 9:17
Yeah, and something else to point out that isn't going to be directly discussed in the study is that the this the soy, soy in general, the isoflavones, or the phytoestrogens in soy, they they also have a negative impact on the thyroid, which is known, they're known goitrogen, so it's important, it has to be processed appropriately to avoid some of the antithyroid effect. But we have overall hormonal effects, and it's kind of in certain situations, they're seeing estrogenic effects, and other situations for us in some degree of anti estrogenic effects. And then also, as we'll see here, when we get into the androgenic effects, we also are seeing some immune effects right adjusting immune response and causing inflammatory. A leukocyte infiltration or migration, which are leukocytes or white blood cells, that generally occurs in states of inflammation, the tissues are sending out signals that are saying, Hey, we have something going on over here. And then it's interesting that in the studies in with soy, it's targeting the reproductive hormone or organs. So yeah, so it says in what they're saying here is a male laboratory animals dietary soy isoflavones have been shown to affect the androgenic response of seminal vesicle and prostate to testosterone testosterone propionate in rats. So it alters the effects of testosterone propionate, which is a testosterone Ester that's exogenous, that you would inject into the rats. It affected the it changed the effect of testosterone on the seminal vesicles prostate and then we have my favorite researcher, last name, oh no 2003 showed that a main phytoestrogen component in soybeans, causes a decrease in serum corticosterone and testosterone in rats. was also shown to increase levels of adrenal Corp corpoco tropic hormone and lucianizing hormone in the same rats. This was further proven in vitro when Opal et al 2004 showed that decreases the secretion of testosterone and rooster latex cells in a dose dependent manner. was also shown to decrease testosterone and lucinizing hormone stimulated Leydig cells. So what, what you're seeing here is that the fight of phytoestrogen decreases serum corticosterone. Now this is interesting because corticosterone is generally the inactive form, inactive or weakly active form of quarter of glucocorticoid that gets converted into cortisol. So it's decreasing the inactive form, and then we don't know, we don't know. We have to go in the study and see what happened with the active form, which would be cortisol. So next is also testosterone is is decreased, and then gentine is also shown to it'll increase the levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone and lucianizing hormones. So ACTH and LH. These are pituitary hormones. Those are pituitary hormones. They're released from the pituitary to signal the production of hormones at the testes or at the adrenal glands. If you have a compound that's decreasing the production of these hormones at their respective sites, at the testes or the adrenal glands, then you would expect that the pituitary granite gland is going to upregulate its signaling hormones, LH and adrenal adrenocorpo tropic hormone, to increase that production. But they're saying here, the was also shown to decrease testosterone and lucinizing hormone stimulated Leydig cells. So it seems that even with the LH present to stimulate the cells to produce a testosterone, the could possibly have an effect on decreasing that production of testosterone. And just so everyone's aware, is the is the one of the soy isoflavones, one of the phytoestrogens in soy.

Jay Feldman 12:56
Yeah, yeah. And so we're basically seeing at every level of the hormones, we're seeing a shift toward the stress hormones and away from the reproductive hormones. And as you're saying, you kind of see it pointed out at every step of the cycle where you're seeing not only an increase, like you're seeing an increase in the hormones that are saying we don't have enough meaning, like the luteinizing hormone, for example, but that's not even able to have an effect, because you're seeing a a reduced response to the luteinizing hormone at the cell. So, yeah, you're seeing it at kind of every level here, and that being a driver of stress. Another thing I just wanted to mention while we're you know, on the topic of just looking at research as a whole, is that a something I'll hear pretty commonly, is this, I, you know, the this research was all done in different animals, and so that's one of the, you know, one of the common critiques of research is, you know, well, do you have anything shown in humans, or, you know, do you have, like, a randomized control trial in humans? And if you don't, then this is meaningless. And I just wanted to mention really quickly that you don't need that, like you don't need a randomized controlled trial in humans to have an idea of what's going on physiologically. And for the large part, the physiology of of all mammals is going to be very, very similar. And so there's generally a lot of, you know, way more overlap than not. Now, of course, there are certain scenarios where there is not overlap, and those are worth considering, but yeah, there's still a lot of value to to considering research done in animals.

Mike 14:32
Yeah. I mean, if you're looking in rats, you're looking in mammals, the testicular structure and the response to some of those hormones, there is variation, like, for example, the rats circadian rhythm of certain hormones is going to be different because a lot of them are nocturnal, but they still have LH, FSH, the same hormones that are going to stimulate the Leydig cells and the sertoli cells inside the testicles to to create sperm or to have sperm under undergo division and and, or spermato. Genesis, etc, whatever, and then you also or to produce testosterone. So those pathways are relatively conserved in a lot of mammals. There's going to be some minor variations, and you keep that in and we've talked about this before, like, the digestion between different mammals is quite different. Like, a cow's digestive system is significantly different than humans. Rats have difference in humans, pigs and humans are relatively similar. So there's definitely going to be differences across the species. But a lot of the hormonal pathways, even if you go through, I think you gave me one of the hormonal book, I think I have it. I have it behind there, behind there. It's vertebrate endocrinology, and they go through all the different and the pathways in the diff in different animals, and a lot of the mammal systems are very similar. So it's just something to keep in mind, and it's even if the random, like, even if you don't have a randomized, controlled trial, you still like, the way I kind of think of it is, I had a bunch of rats, and I was keeping them my house, and I was feeding them mercury, and they were all dying. Well, I wouldn't say, well, since it's not randomized control trial, I might as well try this mercury out myself. Kind of be like, Um, no, I'm not going to eat that one. I'm not going to take that one. So it's to get an idea. It's to get an idea of the effects. And some of these things, like, you can't feed humans soy their whole life, and then on the back end, cut open their testicles and examine what the structure is, and try to be like, Oh, this. The soy does this. The soy does that. Like does you're not going to see a study like that, where, with rats, you can do that. And we're going to look at their testicles, and, you know, cut open. This is scientific. Here people, we're going to look at their testicles and see what the effects are. So as we keep going this, they start to open up about BPA here. So BPA it BPA is a global environmental contaminant, as it is released by almost all polycarbonate materials, which are widely distributed across the globe. Studies have shown that BPS adverse effects on the reproductive system as well as the hormonal system. Takahashi and Oishi showed that BPA can cause a weight decrease in the testes, epididymis, prostate, seminal, seminal vesicle, and a decrease in sperm production. In vitro, BPA induces several morphological changes in the cells conforming to the morphological changes during apoptosis, so cell death or cell program death, so BPA causes changes that are similar to the apoptosis change. And then I'm going to read this last one, Jay, and then you go ahead, BPA has also been shown to decrease sperm motility and sperm count animals by inducing oxidative stress and decreasing the cells antioxidant defense system and pubertal mice and rats. BPA has been implicated in the abnormalities found in the spermatid spermatozoa and the ectoplasmic specialization between the sertoli cells and the spermatid. So basically, the spermatid spermatozoa, sertoli cells, all of these are involved in the production, or these are different different different phases of sperm production, or components involved in sperm production. So BPA has been shown to cause abnormalities in basically this whole process. So it is a anti fertility compound to some extent. And the reason it's being compared to phytoestrogens and estradiol 17 beta stratiol is because it has estrogen like effects. And even with the isoflavones, they are phytoestrogens, they have estrogen. In general, they have been understood to have estrogen like effects, even though some in vitro studies say this and say that.

Jay Feldman 18:30
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just to add on to the initial part of that quote, where they were talking about a decrease in weight of the different reproductive parts, that, just for people who aren't aware, tends to be a sign of inhibited activity, or, as you said, kind of inhibited fertility tends to mirror reductions in sperm production and testosterone production and increased stress. Just in general, when you're seeing increased weight or decreased weight of organs, especially during development, it can mean those things. Of course, sometimes an increase in in weight can be a bad sign, like, if you're talking about the liver, for example, it might be a sign of an increase in liver fat, but in this sort of situation, it's a sign of decreased function that decreased weight. And yeah, and then, of course, BPA, just, just to add the real world context, as they kind of mentioned is used in plastic and also in the lining of cans. And so you see BPA free, listed on a ton of things that you might buy that have plastic or that are in a can. But what they don't mention, and you've mentioned this before, Mike, is that instead of BPA, now, because of the publicity around BPA being having these sorts of issues, they switched, you know, they switched, you know, they switched away from using it from the marketing standpoint, and instead use something called bps, which basically has the same effects as BPA, so still entirely relevant, and something to consider, even when you're getting something that says it's BPA free.

Mike 19:54
And there's other plastic sizers besides BPA and bps, there is you. There's. A litany of plastic compounds that are extremely problematic overall and and petroleum compounds as well. Plastic is essentially a petroleum product, so yeah, it's something for people to consider, as well as plastic is a huge issue, but it hasn't even been around for a century, yet it's and like and in a century, in the time span of everything is quite small, so it's a relatively new problem.

Jay Feldman 20:25
Right, yeah, we're all the randomized, controlled trials for for the effects of using plastic and plasticizers on humans. You know, like we have this such it's just, again, not to go off on too much of a tangent. But we have such a when somebody talks about nutrition, let's say there's such heavy criticism of that, and you need to have the exact study that explains, you know, when we talked about this before, but like, you know, you need the exact study to show that having this type of food within this hour of waking has has this effect if you want to claim it. And of course, that's not typically how research is done yet when we're considering, like, when we're considering the effects of plastic on our health, or various medical interventions that don't have anywhere near the amount of like those things tend not to have anywhere near the amount of of high quality research that we use to you know that we're expecting or need, or saying that we require, for much more mild interventions like having an extra piece of fruit or something like that.

Mike 21:21
No, that would cause diabetes. It's been shown. I don't know where, somewhere someone show it, not actually. There's no studies I've ever seen linking fruit and diabetes with any type of strong relationship. I think what a lot of the research game involves trying to find some relationship, maybe epidemiologically, or through some type of observational or association study. And then after that, there's some in vitro studies, and then there's some animal studies, and then they work their way up eventually to human studies, if it's ethical, if you're if you're having rats testicles falling off because you're giving them doses of BPA, and that's an exaggeration, but if you're having that happen, then it's unlikely that a review board is going to be like, All right, we're going to dose all these humans with BPA, and we're going to see what happens. Right? Like, if you have, if you have some compound that's turning male frogs and male fish into females, they're probably not going to give it to humans, although humans are exposed to it regardless, because the like, for example, they were finding like SSRIs inside like shellfish. So your your muscles and your your oysters are, you know, they're not depressed. You can make sure that they're not depressed, but the can level of contamination. This stuff is just, it's unavoidable. A lot of people ask me about about some of the pollution stuff, like clients and whatnot. It's just like, you got to do the best what you can got, what you got, because a lot of stuff is kind of hard to avoid. There's actually a video. I think I'll link it. I'll give it to you, Jay to link it in the description. But essentially, there's a they're showing that, like, I think in pregnant women, fetuses are exposed to from just maternal blood alone, like 120 different pollutants, something ridiculous like that. So it's a lot of the stuff is very pervasive in the environment, and you can minimize it by some of your choices, but it is hard to get rid of all of it. So the next piece here, one thing I do want to mention is that so while the hormones, like estrogens and whatnot, will can decrease testicular weight, they may increase uterine weight. So that will be a kind of a, seemingly a paradox. So the physiology, it's not that the estrogen starts to increase the uterine weight and cause proliferation and growth inside the uterus to prepare the uterus for the implantation of an egg. But that's a, it's a different there's a, there's kind of a combination there with estrogen and progesterone together. But you will see sometimes the uterine weight gets increased with estrogen. So that will be a little bit of a difference. Piece there, but next piece we get here, and this one's, I think, talking about a strategy all A study conducted using two different strains of adult rats showed in both strains that a strategy, all benzoate dose three times a week per month, caused a decrease in testes weight, sperm production and degeneration of the seminiferous tube tubules. So obviously, this is male rats, basically was destroying their testicles when they gave them exogenous estrogen. Also showed that subcutaneous injections of 17 beta 17 beta estradiol neonatal rats for 10 days also caused a decrease in testes weight and sperm production in the same animals after maturity, an earlier study has shown that postnatal exposure to a strategy all Ben's weight for five days caused a decrease in reproductive capability and marked histopathology alteration the rats after reaching adulthood. So histopathology is the path the the tissue structure inside the testicles, and we're going to have some histopathologic pictures here. So I don't you want to say anything about this one, Jay?

Jay Feldman 24:57
I don't think there's too much to add. I think it's pretty self. Explanatory. I did want to tack on to what you were mentioning about increased for example, uterine weight not necessarily being a good thing. And as I was saying, you can have decreased weight being a sign of an issue, but increased weight can also be a sign of inflammation. For example, cardiac hypertrophy is a known precursor to cardiovascular disease, and happens due to an inflamed heart that isn't working too well. So you know, and knowing that estrogen is involved, as you said, with growth and inflammation, that's kind of that, that backup response, more primordial response, and so, yeah, we'll, we'll be, I guess we'll get into that later.

Mike 25:36
Yeah, we'll definitely. So this is just, there's just to show you what they did. There's the animals were divided into five groups, with each group containing six animals so that they could do a statistical analysis. The groups were control. One was tween 80, which is a like, I think a type of like, synthetic oil control. Two is corn oil. And then the actual active groups was the soy soya extract, the BPA extract, and then they actually gave the rats estrogen. So what we're really trying to compare is between soy BPA, soy extract. So literally, just an extract of the beans, not even oil BPA, and then the stratiol, and then corn oil. In this tween 80. I think the tween 80, um, the controllers. I think, oh, never mind. I'm not gonna go this. It's like an oil carrier I think.

Jay Feldman 26:27
I just pulled it up. It's and I thought it might have been the same. It's the same as a polysorbate 80, which is like, I know it's an additive in food, but yeah, obviously these aren't the best control groups, which will be interesting when we see the results. As you said, it's more of a it'll be more interesting to compare the three treatment groups, as opposed to the control groups, which probably could have a lot of dysfunction too, considering that one is polysorbate 80 and the other is corn oil.

Mike 26:51
Yeah, yeah. So the controls aren't good, but we're still going to see difference here. This chart is just they actually calculated the levels of these phytoestrogens in the food that they were giving the rats and then accounted for those inside the group. But these are the, these are the main phytoestrogens. Comestrol is one, but the main ones are from soy. Are these four. And as you can see, there's like, there's a little bit in the food, but not, not so much, tiny amounts compared to, compared to the actual extract. Now, something to keep well, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Here we're looking at the mean weight gain by rats, and then the the effect of like on their testes, and then the levels of estrogen and testosterone. So this is the there. The two different groups here are the corn oil and the control oil. And something I want to this. This is something that I wanted to really mention here, because we were talking about calories, and calories out any effect on the animals or effect on humans in general, nutrient partitioning, etc. And I just want to highlight here the effects on the animals here, as far as body weight gain, even though they're eating the same foods, so they're getting the same food and and the match diet, etc. But what we're seeing is corn oil is a control versus the estrogen, right? So body weight gain in the corn oil group, they had 78.67 grams, whereas in the astradiol group, they had 38.1 grams, right? Because the testicular weight in the corn oil group was higher, much lower, and in the estradiol group, estrogen level was significantly higher in the Australian group versus the corn oil group, and then testosterone level were as a little slightly higher on the estradiol group. And so overall, what I wanted to point out here is that they didn't change calories. Here, they changed hormones. And the effects that you're seeing is the hormones on the rat, and you're seeing a quite a, quite a significant change inside their body weight. The the rats that receive estrogen rolls half as large as the rats or gained half as much weight as the rats who were on the on the control group, which is quite interesting, considering they weren't in some massive caloric excess. So just something to highlight, as far as these ideas of calories in, calories out. Now you can make an argument that maybe the estrogen changed the calories, the calorie the metabolism, as far as calories going out, and I wouldn't disagree with you there, that's possible. However, it's just it also shifts the perspective, though, because it's like, so should we be prioritizing the calories in and the calories out, like looking between those two, or should we be focusing more on what's going on with hormones? And my obvious, and I think the answer is obvious there, based on some of these results, even if it's not 100% comparable. But I think that you'll see a lot of people will use steroids, not necessarily estrogen, but will use steroids, synthetic androgens, to get ridiculous amounts of lean mass while minimizing fat mass. Um. Without necessarily having to do so much, calories in, calories out, work and you can a lot of bodybuilders will tell you they're taking testosterone and thyroid and whatever else, or synthetic androgens that they can eat whatever they want a lot of times and just blow up with muscle. So just importance of hormones.

Jay Feldman 30:24
I did want to add in that a lot of people are on estrogen steroid treatment. Tends to be women, tends to be in the form of birth control, and it tends to cause the opposite effect of what you're describing with testosterone. Like, in one way, it's the same effect, which is weight gain, but instead of muscle, tends to contribute toward a lot of body fat gain. So seeing again, and still, a massive effect from the hormones on fat balance. And I just wanted to add in, as well as you're kind of getting at this, is one of those factors that can affect the calories outside of the equation, but it also affects things on a higher level than that, that equation, we've kind of dug into, what exactly that means, and other things that are kind of beyond there, like things that don't affect calories out, but affect nutrient partitioning, energy partitioning, or fuel partitioning. So yeah, so even, even when you do have a surplus or deficit in fuel, there's still a question of where, what, where does that get directed to? And we actually see here, what if you have a, let's say, a calorie surplus, which I don't like thinking of in those terms, but I know that's kind of what you know, listeners are probably used to, if you have a caloric surplus and you have high testosterone versus a caloric surplus and high estrogen, in one case, that is going to be partitioned toward muscle and the other toward fat. So still, even outside of the calories and calories out, this is still a major factor that affects fat balance that is on top of higher level than the calories and calories out equation, and still goes, you know, flies in the face of it, as far as again, the idea that calories and calories out equals fat gain or fat loss.

Mike 32:03
So the rest of this stuff in here is just talking about what they did, specifically, how they measure the hormones, statistical analysis. And then here we get to the results in the discussion. So there's this here is just talking about body weight. So the 17 beta stratiol treated group had a statistically significant decrease in body weight compared to control, the mean and relative testes weight was also significantly lower to control. So not only did the estrogen group have a smaller body weight, their testicles were smaller relative to their body weight than the other group. Here they show the soy extract treated group has increased significantly in body weight as well as mean and relative testing weight compared to control. The BPA group did not show a significant difference between the control and weight gain and immune relative testes weight. So they're showing and shift here a difference. But we'll get to, we're gonna, there's gonna be some interesting things here, because you're gonna see some paradoxical things, but we will explain it down later on as we go. Then we get over here. So the 17 beta stratily treated group had significantly increased by eight times in circulating stratial levels compared to the decrease in BPA and soy extract treated rats. Only the soy extract treated rats had a significant increase in circulating testosterone. This is what I'm saying. Is the the controversial piece here, compared to the control. As the data show, there's a difference between the levels of circulating testosterone between the control groups. So what we're so while the testosterone did increase in the soy extract treaty group, but we're going to have to get down to looking at the histopathologic structure, the testicles, and they'll talk about, perhaps, how that is going about, because it's not necessarily a good thing. Is there anything you wanted to add there Jay?

Jay Feldman 33:50
No, I'll let you keep going, because I think it'll explain it further.

Mike 33:56
Yeah. So this is a description of what we're going to see down low in the histopathology. What they're showing here, both the soya extract treated and BPA treated groups showed cellular debris in the seminiferous tubules and sloughing of the germ cells. With the BPA treated group showing a higher degree of damage, the tubules were also vacuolated with lipids the present of the vacuoles and cellular debris resulted in the absence of a lumen. Both groups also showed absence of maturing spermatid only. The soya extract group showed a disturbance in spermiogenesis. The soya extract group did not show late dig cell hyperplasia, as reported by previous studies. So what you're seeing here is that the soya extract group and the BPA group basically had destruction and damage inside the seminiferous tubules, is just where the sperm mature. And then they also didn't have a lumen inside the seminars two rule, so that was swollen and there was vacuoles filled with fat. And then the spermatids, which are developing sperm, uh. And they were absent in both the soy group and the BPA treated group. So basically, we're seeing those beginnings of infertility from these treatments.

Jay Feldman 35:15
And as you're kind of saying yes, in the soy group, there was an increase in testosterone. I don't know how big that increase was, but somebody could point to that and say, Hey, this is first off. It's not so estrogenic. And maybe, you know, we should all be taking it. But then when you look at what's actually happening, at the very least, there is not a proper response to that testosterone and so, and that sounds like it's because of damage. And so you see that a lot with these negative feedback loops, where sometimes, initially you'll see an increase in, you know, it's like an adaptive response to try to correct the issue. And so that's probably what you're seeing here, where, you know, the the cellular signaling is showing that testosterone, you know, we need more testosterone. We're not having the effects of testosterone that we want. So you're seeing increased production, but that is a result of a feedback loop, probably caused by this damage, and obviously it's still not able to have the effect that we're looking for, kind of like a hormetic idea, right? Where, from the hormesis perspective, we're trying to create damage, that we have this adaptive response so that things get stronger, but you're actually just creating dysfunction, and just creating the first level of that dysfunction. And if that continues on, eventually you would see decreased testosterone, typically, as far as, like, the general adaptive response, which I'll be going through in a study in the future, as far as how that progresses.

Mike 36:33
So some the other thing to point out here is, in previous studies, they saw the leg dig cell hyperplasia, which is essentially, it's not hypertrophy, where you have a growth of the cells that are there, you have an increased number of those cells. And it's usually a precursors. It usually happens during injury or and then that's it can be a precursor state to to cancer. So just something to keep in mind there. Now the next we're going to talk about is estrogen itself. So the 17 beta estradiol treated group showed massive morphological differences when compared to its control. The seminiferous tubules were atrophic during very little signs of maturity inside the tubules, very little spermatogonium were present, while there was a total absence of any primary and secondary spermatocytes. Because of this, there was also no maturing spermatids and spermatozoa in the lumen. Some of the tubules also had apoptotic cells present in the lumen. And I'm just going to read this one, and we'll, we'll go through that. But these observations showed that certain doses of soy extract BPA and 17 beta stratiol could cause varying degrees of cellular damage to the testes. This study also shown that soya extract BPA and 17 batted stratiol do have an impact on the histology testes as well as a steroidal hormonal system. All of the effects shown have different degrees of severity, which vary greatly between each treatment group. So the estrogen treatment as well wrecked the testicles, and basically you had no developing sperm at all, and the testicles were kind of atrophic. They weren't, they weren't developing all treatment groups caused damage to the testes and varying degrees and varying effects, but damage nonetheless. And I'm gonna, after you add what you have to say, I'm gonna show you what dosage they're talking about for the soy extract here.

Jay Feldman 38:21
Yeah, I don't have too much to add. I think it's, it's pretty clear, right, that that we're just seeing damage in this way from all, all three of those different compounds. And what that's suggesting is that the soy extract and the BPA have estradiol like effect, and probably aren't too helpful to be increasing your exposure to, yep.

Mike 38:41
So I'm going to read this part here.

Jay Feldman 38:43
One thing I wanted to say too real quick, just adding some context, is that this doesn't mean that these things don't have negative effects in women just because they're looking at the male reproductive system here. Now, obviously it's a little more complex, as you were saying, increases in uterine weight, potentially, and things like that. But generally, that doesn't generally, if you're seeing issues with reproduction, that's going to be mirrored in both both genders So, or both sexes and so, yeah, it's just want to add that in,

Mike 39:15
Okay, yeah, yeah, there's an the negative effect across both both genders, for sure. The effect is just, I think, quite obvious in the if, when the males and looking at the testes, right? So, and I think males are usually the ones who are more worried about it.

Jay Feldman 39:32
Right, but women, of course, should be too.

Mike 39:34
Oh, they should be.

lBut, ike, the whole soy boy thing has been created a subculture around be affecting mainly men, because of the idea that estrogen is like good for women, I guess, or the whole estrogen, and it's not that, it's not that women shouldn't have any estrogen or shouldn't, is that there's a balance that has to be maintained with estrogen, and there are negative effects to it.

Jay Feldman 39:58
Yeah, it's a huge deal. Service to women. I mean, the fact that this is at least already acknowledged as an issue for men. I mean, men tend to be more aware of it. As you're saying, the fact that women, a lot of women, are consuming soy because they're being told that it's helpful for them is, is is worse. You know, they're and we've, you know, I would refer someone back to the Women's Health Series, where we discussed kind of the how, yes, you do need some amount of estrogen at a very particular time, but in general, we want to be more favoring progesterone again. Of course, there's a cycle with progesterone too, but yeah, getting excess estrogen from these exogenous sources, I would say, is virtually never helpful physiologically.

Mike 40:40
So what they do stay here. This like a little this is where I really want to get to. But I do want this preface for the past past decade, or even more than the past decade, soybeans have been intensively investigated, either for their their cancer protection properties or for their endocrine disruption properties. In this study, soy extract, when given orally, caused a significant increase in body weight, testes, weight and circulating testosterone levels, and also caused structural changes in the testes and a decrease in circulating stratio levels. The increase in testosterone level is a novel finding, as Previous studies have reported a statistically significant decrease in testosterone levels and laboratory animals treated with phytoestrogens the and then there's a series of studies they list here. The study conducted by sharp 2002 also reported increase in Leydig cells in the testes of their laboratory animals fed with a soya based milk formula. Thus, this testosterone produced could be due to increase of latex cells in the testes. This doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. It's the blade the the tissues are could be responding to the to the damage that they have by increasing the number of Leydig cells. So like, for example, if you get a cut, your skin will regrow in that area. And they talked about in the previous spot over here as hyperplasia, which would be in increased number of cells, latex cell hyperplasia, which is also precursor to often, can be, not always, but can be a precursor to cancer. So that's something to keep in mind. And then the other thing too is they talk about decreases in estrogen in some of these studies, but that may also like circulating estrogen levels. That may not They may also not be a good thing, especially if you're looking at the effects of these, of this, of soy extract inside the testicles. That was we just read about it. It has a negative effect on the structure, and then it's increasing testosterone through some mechanism, perhaps through hyperplasia, which we're not 100% sure about here from this study alone, but overall, there's been a negative effect. And then decreasing estrogen, as we saw above, the different compounds can decrease the production of hormones by the body's tissue. So it is an endocrine disruptor, and just because it's increased decreasing end to estrogen, doesn't mean that it's doing it by a mechanism with what you want, right? You could just be decreasing estrogen because it's decreasing the production of estrogen at the ovaries or whatnot, through some type of damaging mechanism. It's just, it's always important to know why and how. So if you don't, if we don't know why and we don't know how, and it has this effect, but like, for example, say, people start dumping soy down, which is basically what we have going on now, and it's having this negative effect on on the the the gonads, and then that negative effect, yeah, your hormonal profile is better, but now you're having infertility, which is massively on the rise inside the Western nations, which are just in love with soy, then it's quite possible that even if the hormonal profile is looking better, the other effects are definitely not worth the change in lab values, because, again, the lab values are a snapshot, and are are they aren't the complete picture. They are just a snapshot. They tell us what's happening in time and interpretation also is depending on context and a whole bunch of other factors. Just because your lab values are in certain range doesn't mean that things are necessarily great.

Jay Feldman 44:11
Yeah, it's a great point with with those being a snapshot and kind of lends credence to what they're saying. Where other studies showed a decrease in testosterone, they're showing an increase, but seems to be a result of the damaging inflammatory effects in the testes and time. Could be that factor there where, if they tested for longer, they might they or in a different dose, they might see the testosterone levels come down, like in those other studies, or vice versa, right? The other studies might have been shorter and just showing the initial decrease before the rebound again, that doesn't mean that rebound is a good thing. It's it could be an adaptive response to the damage, but that's not a good way to increase testosterone. If that is the case.

Mike 44:50
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Now, the question that I wanted to know at this point was, how. How much of this soy stuff do I have to eat to blow up my testicles? Because that's what I'm interested in doing. You know, I just the soy. Boy is real. I want to experience it. So I needed to know how much soy to eat. And so what we get over here is this current study also showed histological changes in testy structure in the group treated with a soy extract. Soy extract consists of a combination of many phytoestrogens and other phytochemicals. In Asia, the daily intake of soya beans can be as high as 30 to 50 grams a day, based on this study here, Cornwall et al, 2004 based on the dosage used in this study, 100 milligram of extract is equivalent to approximately 2.5 grams of soya beans. This is approximately 12 to 20 times more than the dose given to the animals. Previous studies have shown that when was given alone, no effect was observed. However, clinic at Al 2004 showed that when and died Xen, I don't know if I'm pronouncing those right. So whatever are given in a two to one ratio orally to male and female mice, the morphological changes to the reproductive organs are dramatic. This study is of great interest as previous unpublished work conducted by our laboratory measured the content of soy extract. Finding soy extract consists of 28.3 micrograms per gram of genistein and 10.1 micrograms of dietzine, 16.4 micrograms per gram of gene and 9.4 micrograms per gram of diets. It's there. Well, this one's lacking in E. This gives a 2.8 to one ratio of and deadzine, comparable to the work of Klein et al, 2004 so basically, what they're showing is, so you have a 2.1 to one ratio orally, causes severe issues, and that the soy extract has a ratio of 2.8 to one. And then on top of that, the what they're saying is that the dose used, the dose that people are eating in Asia, 30 to 50 grams a day is 12 to 20 times more than the dose given to the animals in this study. So you there the effects of soy are physio how it can have a physiologic effect at normal dosages, because sometimes, in studies, researchers will show this thing has this effect, but it's like you could never get that much from food, and that's always important to look at as well. But these researchers are putting into focus that actually you can get more than this from food, and it's in the ratio that it's in a ratio that has been shown in some type of research to be to be problematic. So you can get this problem from from the soy that people are eating.

Jay Feldman 47:40
Right, and I'm assuming that this is in proportion to the weight of the animals, and also the general conversion from humans, yeah, because it's not a one to one situation, even by weight. But yeah, that's, I think that's a pretty clear explanation there, that basically the doses that they're using in the study to create the damage that they were seeing in a pretty substantial amount is way lower than than the amount that a lot of people are eating in Asia, and I'm sure a lot of people in the States as well.

Mike 48:12
So that was our first study just showing the effects of different compounds from foods and from pollutants, on the metabolism and then also on hormones, which they're not separate.

Jay Feldman 48:29
Right yep, yeah, exactly.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode. In the next episode, we'll be digging into a couple of other studies, one focused more on the hormonal effects of various fatty acids, and the other focused on the effects of orange juice relative to a meal and its possible effects on inflammation and blood sugar and some other related factors. And in that episode in particular, we'll be discussing whether PUFA, the polyunsaturated fats, cause more oxidative stress than saturated fats. We'll be talking about how PUFA intake affects testosterone. We'll be discussing whether fruit juice should be avoided for blood sugar regulation, the effects of fruit juice on inflammatory markers and endotoxin, and whether fruit juice has the same effects as soda. So if you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a like or comment if you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening elsewhere, please leave a review or five star rating on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast and are very much appreciated. To check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, maybe these are related to what we discussed today, as far as different estrogenic effects or issues in terms of hormonal balance or any other low energy symptoms, whether that's chronic cravings and hunger, low energy or fatigue, joint pain, weight gain, digestive symptoms, brain fog, poor sleep or. Any other chronic low energy symptoms you might be experiencing or other health issues. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll explain how these different symptoms and conditions are really caused by lack of energy, and I'll also walk you through the main things that you can do from a diet and lifestyle perspective to maximize your cellular energy and resolve these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, I'll see you in the next episode.