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From:	Ryan (98.96.169.166)
Subject:	Soy and Alzheimers Disease
Date:	August 13, 2008 at 2:50 pm PST

Hello all,
I have posted a couple of times regarding some of the anti-soy propaganda out there- particularly that published by the Weston A. Price Foundation. I believe very strongly in academic honesty, so I am posting some reading that I have been doing which is beginning to cause me to think twice about things.

Most anti-soy propaganda does not appear to have any hard science behind it. The health benefits are very well known. But in 2000 a study was published as part of the Honolulu Heart Program, which suggests that Tofu consumption in middle aged adults may lead to dementia in senior years.

The full text of the journal article can be found here:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/19/2/242

Upon first reading this I was slightly concerned as anyone who eats a lot of Tofu would be. But since this is really the first study of its kind(that I know of), and many variables were not controlled for- I felt (like any good scientist would) that it was way too early to jump to ny conclusions- especially given all of the studies which establish the positive effects of soy.

The following article speaks of a short term study in monkeys which suggests the opposite effect on the occurrence of Alzheimer's (this is not a journal article- I do not know where to find an actual journal article for this study but I will look for it). This is more like the information that I am used to hearing about.

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Soy-to-reduce-Alzheimer-s-risk

Then I found an MSN article which suggests that tofu leads to dementia, this time the study was done in Indoesia:

http://news.sg.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1615264

Here is a link to the abstract for the journal article associated with the study:

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowAbstract&ArtikelNr=141484&Ausgabe=239033&ProduktNr=224226

As nutrition and neurology are not my fields (I'm a Physics/Mathematics guy). I cannot really with authority comment on the truth of these articles. I can say that the fact that two published articles(In what appear to me to be fairly reputable Journals) concerning long term studies have reached the same conclusion- a negative one, does in fact concern me. I have not had the time to try to dig up dirt on the two studies- it's on my list of things to do but this summer has been non-stop for me.

I am still skeptical of all of this and feel that a total of two articles journal article is not sufficient evidence to conclude that soy is evil, but is sufficient evidence to begin asking serious questions.

I am not posting this because I am part of the anti-soy campaign, or give into their fallacious arguments and lack of authority on the subject- but I have posted here a couple of times rebutling their arguments and feel that I need to be honest about my perceptions.

Ryan

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