May 05, 2004

In male monkeys, too much soy has adverse effects. [Via FuturePundit.]
posted by homunculus 20 years ago
  • The Post ran a piece on human consumption of soy yesterday. I can't imagine heavy consumption of anything that mimics estrogen can be good for the males of a species. But I do love edamame and miso.
  • I've ben warned off this in the past by my doctor when I started getting hard lumps under my nipples. What's really funny is explaining this patiently to some of the more, uh, firm vegitarians I know when explaining why their delicious soy products are off my menu. Apparently only meat could ever be bad fo people 8-/ Less funny is that I can no longer eat delicious miso soup.
  • Why do you hate the environment, animals, and hippie chicks so much, rodgerd? ;P I don't eat much tofu, but I dearly love Vietnamese food, so I gotta have my vermicelli salad....
  • maybe this is why straight-edge vegans can be so cranky ;)
  • Huh, guess we should stop giving rhesus macaques soy products, then. This study has absolutely no value at all, except to continue Mr. Kaplan's white-coat welfare.
  • The "c" would be for "cranky", perhaps?
  • an awful strong comment cmonkey. i agree the pr blurb that this story is overall meaningless, but i'd at least read their paper before drawing such conclusions as to the research.
  • MonkeyFilter: Mr. Kaplan's white-coat welfare Or, even better MonkeyFilter: hard lumps under my nipples
  • Crazy hippies.
  • cmonkey's point notwithstanding... would the agression levels be higher or lower if the soy concentrations were replaced, for multiple populations, with beef, chicken, peanuts, beans, fish, etc. i would be interested to see how each "meat group" food would stack up on the angry monkey-meter.
  • "In the monkeys fed the higher amounts of isoflavones, frequencies of intense aggressive and submissive behavior were elevated," according to the study. "In addition, the proportion of time spent by these monkeys in physical contact with other monkeys was reduced by 68 percent, time spent in proximity to other monkeys was reduced 50 percent and time spent alone was increased 30 percent." So they got into BDSM, and sat in their rooms playing Everquest all day long. That explains a lot about certain social trends over the past few years. Okay, seriously: I don't know about this. Laboratory findings are one thing, real world effects are another. Asians have eaten lots of soy in their diet for thousands of years, and I haven't noticed they have any more, or less, problems with aggression than, say, Europeans or Africans. As the prudent researcher says at the end of every paper, "More research is necessary."
  • Out of sheer curiosity -- does anyone know, is there soy in monkey chow?
  • I'm goin' with the cmonkey vote here. I call bullshiat. Reminds me of strapping masks on monkeys to force them to inhale vast quantities of smoke and then determine it's bad for them. Rats have rights! *squeak*
  • I <3 pete_best!