You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Food Supplements #4: Soy isoflavones - A natural saviour for menopausal women?
- Fermented soy is tofu. In the soy bean, isoflavones are found as glycosides, that means bound to a sugar. For example genistin, which is genistein glucoside (genistein bound to a glucose molecule). What happens during fermentation is that the sugar is cleaved and the isoflavones are then found in their original form again. I'm not sure which difference this makes for us humans, as the same should happen in our stomach anyway (there are lots of bacteria there that also cleave sugars from molecules to eat them). If anything, it should have stronger effects to eat the "pure" isoflavone...
- I'm not aware of any literature on genistein and men. But that's an interesting question I have to look up. High doses are for sure not very healthy for you. If there are estrogenic effects of isoflavones consumed with soy on men, I can't tell. Probably not, as the reached concentrations are too low for that, but I'll cross-check it.