The Deal With Soy, part 1
Lately, a new word has entered the food industry’s vocabulary: nutraceutical. The roots of this new buzzword are “nutritional” and “pharmaceutical”, which is actually a bit misleading. You see, I would say that a pharmaceutical product is a synthetic drug like Vioxx or Zoloft, not a natural component of our everyday foods like lycopene (which is abundant in tomatoes) or beta sitosterol (found in soy, oils, and nuts). Here’s the difference: pharmaceuticals are special molecules made by big companies in controlled conditions to fit into special regions of the body or brain and make something very specific happen. Nutrients are also special molecules but, rather than being tailored to do something special, they occur naturally and fit into the whole systems of our bodies and support a number of processes.

For example, let’s look at soy. Now, it’s easy to roll your eyes when someone says “soy”, but let’s see if we can’t get past the stereotypical idea of soy as food for tofu and sprout eaters so that we can talk nutrition. You may have heard of soy phytosterols, which are getting serious attention regarding blood-cholesterol levels, cancer, and even prostate health. As with anything, some of these claims may be exaggerated, but there is serious evidence mounting in soy’s favour regarding prostate health.

First, I should mention that a soy phytosterol complex will contain a number of plant sterols, which are hormones from plants which help to balance the body’s hormones when consumed in healthy amounts. The American diet is mostly deficient in phytosterols, which can lead to an imbalance in the body’s hormones. Such an imbalance may cause any number of problems, possibly even cancer. But non-cancerous prostate conditions can also result. After all, the prostate is a gland very closely connected to the reproductive system and the male reproductive system deals with a lot of hormones. If there is an imbalance, then the parts of the body which deal in the most hormones are the most vulnerable.

For example, imagine that you have two plants, a cactus and a violet. Now imagine that you forget to water them for a few months and, once you go to water them again, you notice that the violet has died but the cactus remains basically healthy. That’s because the cactus doesn’t need a lot of water to survive and be healthy, while the violet needs regular watering or else it will get stressed and eventually die. Now, what does this have to do with soy or prostate health? Basically, the prostate is like your body’s violet. If you have a hormone imbalance, the prostate will suffer faster and worse than most other parts of your body.

Soy phytosterol complexes typically contain a good balance of these chemicals, such as quercetin and beta sitosterol. The reason for including them into nutraceutical products is not as much that they are good for the prostate, but more that they are good for the blood and the heart and health in general. Now, this may be a good time to pause in case you need a bit of time to absorb the information or else to do some searching on your own. Next, I’ll continue talking about soy and why everyone seems to be looking specifically at soy phytosterols.