Health Care Article

WASHINGTON: Eating or drinking a lot of products containing soy and isoflavones can result in reduced sperm count among men, a Harvard School of Public Health study has shown.

“There has been a lot of interest on whether soy affects fertility because many studies in animals suggest that this is the case, but there are very few studies in humans,” said researcher and lead study
author Jorge Chavarro. “This is only the third study to look at whether soy food has a relationship with
fertility in humans and the first one to find an association in agreement to the animal studies,” he said.

Soy contains isoflavones, an organic compound which acts like female hormones and appears to impede a man’s ability to produce sperm. “Isoflavones are structurally similar to estrogen and can mimic the action of estrogen in the body,” said Chavarro.

“Soy is expected to have estrogen-like activity in many organs and tissues which can be beneficial for some things but it’s certainly not beneficial for sperm production, at least that’s what animal models
suggest.” The Harvard study examined the soy intake of 99 men, determined to be part of couples experiencing fertility difficulties, over the course of three months. - AFP

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