4 otherwise healthy foods crammed with estrogen

[unhappycamper]

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/13/4_otherwise_healthy_foods_crammed_with_estrogen_partner/



Estrogen has been linked to obesity and sexual dysfunction. You may want to rethink the amount of soy in your diet

4 otherwise healthy foods crammed with estrogen
Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
Sunday, Apr 13, 2014 08:30 AM EST

It is no secret that our bodies and our environment are swimming in estrogen. Puberty is occurring as early as eight years old in children and recently babies in China have developed breasts. Frogs and fish are becoming “intersex” and losing their male characteristics from excreted estrogens in the environment and waterways. In England, the Daily Mail ran a feature on the phenomenon of women’s bra cup sizes increasing independent of their weights, likely because of environmental and livestock chemicals. The website Green Prophet speculated that women in the Middle East are not yet experiencing cup inflation because their environments have not become similarly estrogenized.

While many people are fans of big boobs, the larger issue of feminized women, men and wildlife should be a wakeup call. Estrogen is blamed for everything from breast and prostate cancer and other hormone-linked conditions to obesity, sexual dysfunction, dropping sperm counts and depression and mood disorders. In studies of women given prescribed hormone drugs, estrogen was linked to lung cancer, ovarian cancer, skin cancer, gall bladder cancer, cataracts urinary incontinence and joint degeneration.

Most of us know we unwittingly get synthetic estrogens (endocrine disrupters) from plastics like BPA, petroleum based products, detergents, cosmetics, furniture, carpeting, thermal receipts and on our food from agriculture chemicals like pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (a good reason to buy organic). But we also get a lot of “natural” estrogens from foods we may eat every day. While these “phytoestrogens” are not as bad as synthetic chemicals, women who are plagued with PMS, fibrocystic disease and water retention, or who are at risk for breast cancer and men who do not want to be feminized may want to use them moderately.Here are some “good” and “bad” foods that have more estrogen than you may realize—or want.

1. Flax

Flax and especially flax meal has the image of being a healthy superfood. But when you look at a list of the top phytoestrogen-containing foods, flax and flax products are at the very top. A hundred grams of flax packs an astounding 379,380 micrograms of estrogen compared with 2.9 micrograms for a fruit like watermelon. Flax is now widely found in baked goods like bread, bagels and muffins, snack foods, cereals, pasta, drink mixes and used in poultry, swine, beef and dairy cow feed.

[VanillaRhapsody]

1. this is hogwash...

"In studies of women given prescribed hormone drugs, estrogen was linked to lung cancer, ovarian cancer, skin cancer, gall bladder cancer, cataracts urinary incontinence and joint degeneration."

[Warpy]

3. Yes, another rubbishy article from Junk Science, Inc.

Living on one food to the exclusion of all others will make you sick.

That is the only caution.

If you love soy products, eat soy products. Your willie will not wilt and hang its head in shame. After all, there are 1.3 billion Chinese eating a diet heavily soy based. I don't see many side effects from that "massive" estrogen dose there.

[Jim Lane]

5. Is the part about flax, for example, "hogwash"?

The linked article gives specific information (included in the OP's excerpt) about the extraordinarily high estrogen content of flax. Is there any reason to doubt the accuracy of the measurement?

It certainly seems plausible that someone who made it a point to eat a lot of flax (which, as the article notes, has been touted as a healthful food) could thereby be taking on quite a load of estrogen, and that this, combined with the other factors mentioned in the article (estrogen and/or its precursors in many of the products we use) could create a problem.

[VanillaRhapsody]

6. and that's bullshit too...

Flaxseed is sometimes tried for cancer because it is broken down by the body into chemicals called “lignans.” Lignans are similar to the female hormone estrogen - so similar, in fact, that they compete with estrogen for a part in certain chemical reactions. As a result, natural estrogens seem to become less powerful in the body. Some researchers believe that lignans may be able to slow down the progress of certain breast cancers and other types of cancers that need estrogen to thrive.

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-991-FLAXSEED.aspx?activeIngredientId=991&activeIngredientName=FLAXSEED

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Soy is also a heavy GMO crop, turns out.

Fact I found the day after buying my tofu.

[roody]

4. Organic tofu is not GM.