I figured that would get your attention.

Here’s the deal.  Unfermented soy products, such as soy milk, soy ice cream, or soy nuts, are endocrine disrupters and mimic hormones in your body.  They block the receptor sites in your cells for naturally produced hormones to lock into and interrupt the feedback loop throughout your entire endocrine system.

When this happens, hormones run amok.  It’s the equivalent of a ship without a captain: none of the shipmates would know what to do without the captain’s direction.  If your hormones are off, you’ve got the same situation going on inside your body.

To make matters worse, xeno hormones in our environment like BPA (Bisphenol A) found in plastics and the ink on register receipts; petroleum byproducts in food, candles, and personal care products (think petroleum jelly for 1); and even household furnishings like carpet, disrupt hormones too and create a new hormone called Sex Hormone Binding Globulin.

Sounds icky right?  Well it is.  SHBG, for short, occurs as a result of being exposed to xeno hormones, or estrogens, and bonds with testosterone so it can’t be absorbed, rendering it unusable.  So even if your body is making testosterone, it can’t be used.

This sets the stage for an increasingly common condition known as estrogen dominance, for women and men.

It’s bad enough testosterone drops 10% a year for men as it is, now this?  And too much estrogen in a woman can result in break outs, excess fat, and even worse – breast cancer.

There’s mounting evidence too that breast cancer in men is on the rise as well thanks to xeno hormones.  Join the club guys.

Historically the emphasis has always been on women, but with an overly adulterated food supply, hormonal imbalances are cropping up in more and more men nowadays.  They’re wrestling with unexplained feelings of depression, crankiness, and bouts of crying, and can’t seem to figure out why.

And to top things off, all of this leads to low libido.  Ee gads!

So what do you do?  No worries, I wouldn’t leave you hanging.  Here are my top 3 tips to help you reduce or eliminate soy from your diet and steer clear of xeno hormones:

1. Use nut mylk instead of soy milk. A lot of people shop the health food store thinking that puffed brown rice cereal and soy milk = healthy.  Wrong.  It’s better than Cap N’ Crunch and homogenized cows milk, but it’s still processed and it’s still soy.  My suggestion => try nut mylk, such as almond, hemp, or coconut, instead.  They’re a better source of protein and healthy fats, and most importantly don’t mess with hormone levels or production.
2. Eat fermented soy only. Fermented soybeans are a staple in many Asian cultures, but in the US we’ve mass produced the soybean without fermenting it first.  Fermented soy doesn’t block protein digestion like unfermented soy does, and it isn’t a threat to your thyroid.  Unfermented soy has goitrogens, which are anti-nutrients and suppress your thyroid, plus inhibit healthy thyroid function.  Fermented soy includes tofu, natto, miso, tempeh, shoyu, and tamari, however I recommend eating it no more than twice a week.
3. Detox your liver quarterly. Without a healthy functioning liver, it’s hard to be healthy.  Your liver processes your hormones, and is also responsible for converting T4 into T3 thyroid hormone so that your thyroid activates.  With xeno estrogens in the mix, it’s very hard for your liver to break them down and do its job properly.  I’m a big fan of detoxification.  With the toxic burden we’re under every day, it’s impossible to experience true health if you don’t clean out your system on a regular basis, so I suggest doing a liver cleanse every 3 months.  A great 1 I know of is from Biotics Research, simply called the Biotics Cleanse, which can only come from a health care practitioner.  My clients get great results on this cleanse.  E mail me for more info.

It’s my mission to help 1 million people by 2012 restore full function to their bodies so that they’re not reliant on drugs or harmful medications any longer.  If you want to learn more about how hormonal imbalances can be easily corrected, contact me at angela@wellnesswithangela.com.