Is Soy Bad For Autoimmune Patients?

Soy. I’ve talked a lot about soy and there’s a lot of crappy smear campaigns about soy out there. Lots of physicians slam the hell out of soy. They slam dunk it really bad. I just read on a popular doctor’s website in America, the four reasons why not to touch soy, if you’ve got autoimmune disease and all this sort of stuff.

Well, actually it’s crap when I read her page because some of the reasons are so flimsy and stupid. It just doesn’t make sense. People knee jerk react so much these days because they see so much online and they straight away bang, they form a powerful opinion on what some person says out there. And often these are dumb, these sort of things are based on studies. Okay.

I just read a study where they gave this tiny little mouse, 25% of its diet, soy. They were pumping soy into this tiny little mouse. Okay. But first, they made this mouse, they developed autoimmune disease in the mouse and then they gave it lots of soy. And then they found that it had the production of an inflammatory mediator went right up. And then they say, “See, humans shouldn’t eat soy because it’s actually harming mice.”

Well, hang on a minute, mate. Get a 150-pound male like me. Okay. Now if we look at 20% of that guy’s diet, 25% of the guy’s diet, in fact, 5% of the diet was soy oil and 20% was soybean. So, if you pump that into me at the same rate you would at that mouse I’d probably feel pretty sick too. And then, but hang on first, you’d have to develop autoimmune disease in me, make me sick, and then give me all that soy to see what would happen.

And this is how stupid studies are. They’re really stupid, many of these studies. And many journalists read these things and then jump on board and immediately the headlines and the next Twitter feed or something will be, “Soy kills people.” Okay. Don’t buy this nonsense, all right.

Now I can tell you soy is not the best food, but it’s definitely not the worst food, all right? The amount of people I know that have eaten soy for decades have had no issues out of it. Autoimmunity is a big problem. Soy doesn’t have to be a big problem for autoimmunity.

But people keep missing the bloody boat all the time. I keep saying this time and again. With autoimmunity, the key thing is to get the gut in great shape and that means getting a full profile on all the bacteria in the gut. Looking at the fungi, okay, the yeasts, looking at the different bacteria, the beneficial and not so beneficial and trying to get that balance occurring properly, okay. This is a key thing.

Further readings:

But whether soy induces this disease, it’s not going to happen. Soy doesn’t cause autoimmune disease. One day it will be found that autoimmune disease is caused by bacteria translocation in the wrong place. Many, many people eat soy for decades or all their lives have no autoimmune disease. I also know many patients over the years who have eaten soy with autoimmune disease and who don’t have autoimmune disease, likewise.

So, we can’t say that soy causes autoimmune disease. But what we could also say is many other foods should not be touched by people with autoimmune disease either, unless they’re conducive for building good bacterial health. The best diet for autoimmune patient is the diet that helps to build up that person’s gut function to a high level. That’s the best diet for that person. Okay. So, when it comes to autoimmune, paleo kind of diets and this sort of crap, again, we can’t cast a diet in stone and say this diet is perfect for everybody with autoimmune disease, because everyone’s gut is different.

But soy has been cast as a bad demon because it’s a legume, okay. Because they say it contains goitrogens, okay, which could disrupt the thyroid function and stop the thyroid functioning optimally. Yes, it does. But only in a diet that’s devoid of iodine. So, if the person’s got plenty of iodine in their diet, soy is not a problem, all right.

And this is what happened to many people who left Japan. They went to America and Hawaii and they developed thyroid problems because they weren’t eating a level of seafood or iodine in their diet anymore that they were in Asia. But they still continued on with soy and no doubt GMO soy, the genetically modified crap in the States that they don’t have necessarily in other countries.

Non-GMO soy in a gut that’s functioning really well like mine with a good bacterial content, I’m totally confident to eat that two to three times per week for lunch and I have so for what, 40 years and as I say, I haven’t got homophobia or mental retardation out of it yet.

I personally don’t see soy as a problem. But I do see it a problem in a sick, weakly body with a really poor gut function. I can see soy being problematic in that. I can see soy being a problem fed to babies and kids under five instead of breast milk. I can see that being a problem. And particularly if the child’s being treated with antibiotics, and those are the cases I’ve seen with a wrecked gut getting soy, that can be problematic.

But to keep sinking the boot into soy all the time saying it’s a bad food. There’s a lot worse foods out there than soy that people consume every day. So, just be careful.

What was the question again? Why soy is bad for autoimmune disease. Well, it’s perceived to be bad by many people. But as I say, I think they’re missing the boat. I really believe the gut needs fixing up and then soy can be put back in, preferably non-GMO and not at 20% of the body weight volume. And I don’t see it being a problem. Well, that’s my two cents worth on it.