6.22.2005

One more reason to drink soy milk...

...assuming you don’t want kids, of course.

A plant chemical found in soya, tofu and legumes could potentially damage sperm and affect male fertility, a British researcher said on Wednesday.

Professor Lynn Fraser, of King's College London has shown that genistein, which can mimic the effect of the female hormone oestrogen, affects sperm in mice.

But it seems to have an even stronger impact on human sperm.

In laboratory tests, Fraser found that small amounts of the chemical can cause human sperm to "burn out" and lose fertility.

"Human sperm proved to be even more responsive than mouse sperm to genistein," Fraser told a fertility meeting.

Fascinating! Of course, I can’t help but think of my vegan brother and sister-in-law and their three children right now. None of them were planned. I don’t think they are having any fertility problems!

But, of course, no news about reproductive health and conception is complete without a stern warning to women. It seems that even if sperm is affected, it’s still all women’s fault:

She added that if women eat soya and other foods high in genistein it might have a bigger impact on male fertility because the chemical is likely to affect sperm when it is in the female preparing to fertilize an egg.

"Maternal exposure to the compounds is probably more important than paternal exposure," Fraser explained.

One more thing—isn’t soya is huge component of Chinese cuisine? 1.5 billion people; I don’t think they are having fertility problems either!

annamaria at 3:17 PM

2 spoke

2 Comments

at Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:52:00 AM  Kurt said...

I hope no one in the Bush administration reads this. There will be such a conflict of interest! One the one hand, Archer Daniels Midland contributes mightily to GOP candidates and I'm sure they need all the soy outlets they can find. On the other hand, this would seem to be another morning after abortion pill and the those right-wing nuts will probably try to get it banned because it is killing live babies that aren't conceived yet.
I think Dub will take a long weekend at the ranch after hearing about this...

 

at Friday, June 24, 2005 1:18:00 PM  annamaria said...

Haha! I'm totally picturing "Grocers for Life" right now, staging protests at my local Whole Foods. Too funny!

 

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