How many people are in China?  Don't they eat a lot of soy over there?  They don't look to have any fertility problems to me, in fact, it seems to be quite the opposte over there!  Apparently 41million sperm makes very little difference on fertility.  Stupid macho men want to have high sperm count because the more sperm they have the more of a "man" they are.  Stupid.

Soy milk-->lose a few million sperm per squirt
Dairy milk-->lose a few million people to heart disease per year

Am I missing something here?
::)

(If the soy thing is even true, that is.)

I saw this last night and I think my response was...

"Well this is good news for young, single male vegans. Less likely to knock your one-night stand up!"

Here's a study of one man (dh). When we were trying to conceive Noah it took a LONG time (DH was then carnivorous). He got tested and had a low count! very low! but eventually it worked....

Lyle only took us 2 cycles....no tests, no problems, and dh is now nearly vegan and eats tons of soy!

So there you have it! Research debunked!  ;) ;D

I saw this last night and I think my response was...

"Well this is good news for young, single male vegans. Less likely to knock your one-night stand up!"

Seriously!
Good news for the ladies who bone them, also.

Iknowright?  I mean, sounds OK to me....fewer accidental people, less slaughter.........

I think we should flip this study upside down and ask why the meat eaters have such an unusually high sperm count.

Really, homo sapiens have been evolving for over 40,000 years and contrary to popular belief a meat based diet is a modern development. Shockingly, we were able to fill the earth with humans while eating wild vegetables, tubers, berries, legumes, grains and some occasional meat thrown in when available.

Even my father grew up 60 years ago as a very poor farmer and complained of eating beans every single day. They couldn't afford anything else. Society's current habit eating meat 3 times a day is a very recent change in our diet.

You know what else lowers sperm count? Mountain Dew and alcohol. I don't see any article whining about people drinking too much of those. If a carnivore brings this up, ask if he/she is willing to give up the sauce.

Here is Robert Cohen's response to this study (I get the daily email from him so couldn't post a link):

Eating Soy Will Make You Sterile

That's the recent claim of soy bashers, thanks to
the latest headline based upon a publication in
the journal of Human Reproduction.

See if you can figure out the fatal flaw of this study.

The research involved 99 men with fertility-related problems
who visited the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility
Center with their partners between 2000 and 2006.

Were these men asked whether they also consumed broccoli or
apples? Americans eat four times the amount of phytoestrogens
each day in fruit and veggies as they do from soy products.

Are the phytoestrogens in soy and the phytoestrogens found
in broccoli and apples hazardous?

Tune in to NBC during the first week of August for
the Olympic answer to this troubling enigma. Perhaps
this is why there are so few Chinese people...

George Bush, Sr. avoided broccoli, and in doing so,
angered America's all-powerful and politically connected
broccoli lobby. As a result, Bush was not re-elected and
served only one term.

OK, so I exaggerate a bit, but Bush's dislike for
cruciferous vegetables was legendary. Were the
instincts of ex-President Bush correct?

According to Mercola.com and his group of soy-bashers
(soyonlineservice.com, Sally Fallon, and the Price
Pottinger Institute), broccoli is also a deadly poison
and must be avoided. So too, for that matter, should
you never again eat seeds, whole grains, berries, fruit,
vegetables, nuts, or sprouts. Let's explore why.

Despite the fact that phytoestrogens (plant estrogens)
are not steroids like human estrogen, there are those
who would have you induce vomiting, if ever you
swallowed a soy product containing isoflavones. My
advice to you is to not swallow their illogical line
of reasoning.

For each milligram of phytoestrogens that she eats
in soy products, the average American woman will also
consume an additional four milligrams of pytoestrogens
from fruits and vegetables. Advice to abstain from
phytoestrogens is insanity, and Internet hype and
hysteria has infected the good judgement of many
so-called health advocates. This includes many ignorant
physicians, who read one such article and assimilate
just enough information to offer erroneous and dangerous
health advice to their patients.

Phytoestrogens are widely distributed in plants. There
are three categories of phytoestrogens--isoflavones
(which are found in soy), lignans (seeds, fruits
and veggies), and coumestans (broccoli and sprouts).

So, if you take the advice of Internet soy-bashing
ignoramuses and do not drink soymilk because you fear
phytoestrogens, by all means, you must give up fruits,
veggies, nuts, and grains too.

The only reason that phytoestrogens are considered to be
very dangerous is that the name sounds like estrogen,
even though they are not steroid hormones, and even though
their mechanisms of action do not mimic estrogen. Beware
of phytoestrogens, you are told. Like the "boogeyman,"
phytoestrogens in fruit and veggies are gonna get you
while you sleep.

A publication in the February 2004 issue of the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition (R. Ziegler, 2004;79:183-4)
suggests that women who eat high levels of soy isoflavones
have lower rates of breast cancer than those who consume
low levels of isoflavones.

Dr. Regina Ziegler is a researcher with the National Cancer
Institute. She has taught health and nutrition courses at
Yale and Harvard Universities. Ziegler writes:

"The daily intake of phytoestrogens in white U.S
women has been estimated to be <1 mg, with 80% from
lignans, 20% from isoflavones, and <0.1 from coumestans."

******************************************************
In other words, according to Ziegler, an expert in her
field, Americans eat four times the amount of
phytoestrogens in fruit and veggies as they do from
soy products.
******************************************************
Ziegler continues:

"Historically, breast cancer rates in the United States
have been 4-7 times those in Asia, whereas isoflavone
intake in the United States is <1% that in Asian
populations."

So should you take Mercola's advice and eliminate soy
and all fruits and vegetables because of phytoestrogens?
Should you also follow his dietary advice by eating
raw milk and dairy products and raw meat? If you follow
Mercola, you will be led into a cave with other
Neanderthals.

You might consider contrary advice. An apple a day
does keep the doctor away because of those magical
phytoestrogens. So too do brown rice and almonds,
broccoli, and fresh sprouts. Go heavy on the soy.

Dead raw flesh and cooked animal parts should not
be served with body fluids from diseased animals.
Every cell in your miraculous body craves life, not
death. Cells and enzymes from carrots and oranges.
Green plants containing chlorophyll, and calcium
with magnesium in a proportion that is efficiently
utilized by the human body. A rose will never become
a dead chicken, even if it is so re-named. Neither would
a phytoestrogen become a steroid hormone, nor act like one.

For health, eat isoflavones and phytoestrogens. Your
body will thank you.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

yet another response from Robert Cohen!

Counting Sperm For Science

Some people count their blessings.
Others count cards while playing blackjack.
One woman at my local produce store insists upon
counting the number of lemons in my plastic bag
each time I purchase 20 at four-for-the-dollar.
(The last time I intentionally soured her day by
filling the bag with 19 lemons while paying for
20. She never said a word but I could see that
she knew...)

There are discounts and miscounts, viscounts,
and the Count of Monte Cristo, and when it
comes to writing college papers, spelling counts.
Then there are those who count the number of sperm
in male ejaculations in the glorious name of science.

I've done my own Internet research and prefer to have
faith and blindly accept the work of previous scientists,
so I will not be checking for myself first hand the actual
number, but here is what seems to be universally accepted
by sperm-counters:

"A normal number of sperm per ejaculate is 40 million
sperm (20 million per milliliter times 2 milliliters)."

http://www.thenewjerseymaleinfertilitycenter.com/sperm_detection.php

That standard was established in 1950, more than one-half
century ago. I suppose that sperm counting techniques
have changed during the past 58 years as technology
has improved, but the 20 million sperm per ml standard
continues to be the baseline used in similar studies.

Which brings me to dumb study time. This past week,
some highly-publicized nonsense was distributed claiming
that the consumption of soy products lowered the number
of sperm in those males attending a Harvard fertility clinic
in the Boston area. Red Sox fans, I suppose. I anxiously
await a follow up study for the Bronx. There is good reason
New York Yankee fans are called the "Bronx Bombers" while
Red Sox fans continue to live under the curse of Babe
Ruth. You might recall that the Babe had two wives and
only one daughter, but I digress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE SOY STUDY ABSTRACT

Soy food and isoflavone intake in relation to semen quality
parameters among men from an infertility clinic.
- Human Reproduction, July 23, 2008

Chavarro JE, Toth TL, Sadio SM, Hauser R.

Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health,
665 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA, USA.

METHODS The intake of 15 soy-based foods in the previous 3
months was assessed for 99 male partners of subfertile couples
who presented for semen analyses to the Massachusetts General
Hospital Fertility Center. Linear and quantile regression were
used to determine the association of soy foods and isoflavones
intake with semen quality parameters while adjusting for personal
characteristics.

RESULTS There was an inverse association between soy food intake
and sperm concentration that remained significant after accounting
for age, abstinence time, body mass index, caffeine and alcohol
intake and smoking. In the multivariate-adjusted analyses, men
in the highest category of soy food intake had 41 million sperm/ml
less than men who did not consume soy foods.

CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that higher intake of soy foods
and soy isoflavones is associated with lower sperm concentration.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you notice what I noticed? Researchers observed:

"Men in the highest category of soy food intake had 41
million sperm/ml less than men who did not consume soy foods."

How can men have 41 million less sperm per milliliter when
the standard for all men (established and unchanged since
1950) is 20 million per milliliter? Do soy eaters have
negative sperm counts...?

...Or, is somebody cheating?

I have asked to examine the raw data, minus the sperm by
leaving a phone message (617-432-4584) for Jorge E. Chavarro,
the head scientist. I've also emailed my request to Dr.
Chivarro at: eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6a%63%68%61%76%61%72%72%40%68%73%70%68%2e%68%61%72%76%61%72%64%2e%65%64%75%22%3e%6a%63%68%61%76%61%72%72%40%68%73%70%68%2e%68%61%72%76%61%72%64%2e%65%64%75%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b'))

I am disappointed that my phone call was not returned.
Nor did I get even a limp response to my email. The hours
go by while I wait for a response, but who's counting?
Perhaps my expectations are premature...

Bottom line:

Sperm counts of 5-10 million per ml are the defining line
for sterility problems. According to the above link
(male infertility center of New Jersey):

"Many experts in male factor infertility now believe that
only very low concentrations, such as 5-10 million per
milliliter, accurately reflect a decrease in concentration
that is important for fertility."

The Harvard researchers claimed that men who did not eat
soy had average sperm counts between 80-120 million per ml.

What the heck were these superstuds doing in a fertility
clinic?

Even with 40 million less sperm, soy eaters would have
averaged 40-80 million sperm per ml, between two and
four times the historical average.

Final comment:

I did not reach the senior author, but after many phone
calls did speak with somebody associated with the study
who asked not to be identified. I respect that.

I was told:

"Asian men consume 5-10 times the amount of soy as
did the men in our study, yet, it remains obvious that
Asian males have no fertility problems."

If you are a male and eat soy, continue to do so.
Even the scientists doing this research suspect that
obesity plays a much greater role in sterility than
any possible soy consumption. Be aware of another
study:

"The study measured testosterone levels in 696 Oxford
University men. Of the study participants, 233 were vegan
(ate no animal products) and 237 were vegetarian (ate milk
and dairy products). The remaining 237 subjects were men
who ate meat on most days of the week...vegans had higher
testosterone levels than vegetarians and meat eaters."

British Journal of Cancer, 83(1), July 2000

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com