Hello everyone, I am Li Shan and everyone calls me Sa Jie.
First of all, I wish everyone a happy Spring Festival!
As an obstetrician and gynecologist, I hope every woman can better understand her body, know more reliable health knowledge and better protect herself.
So I began to write, writing hundreds of answers on Zhihu, with 120,000 followers and 570,000 approval, and helping tens of thousands of women to answer their doubts.
In the past two days, several girls have asked me questions about soya-bean milk at the same time:
Sa Jie, I heard people say that drinking soya-bean milk can cause breast cancer, because drinking too much soya-bean milk and excessive hormone intake cause it. Is this true? Can drinking too much soya-bean milk lead to breast cancer?
What? Drinking too much soya-bean milk leads to breast cancer? ! Scared me to drink a big mouthful of soya-bean milk to press the shock!
Soybeans contain [phytoestrogen]
Many people think that soya-bean milk contains estrogen, but in fact the estrogen in soya-bean milk is different from the estrogen in our bodies. Soya-bean milk contains soybean isoflavone.
This is a flavonoid compound, which is a bioactive substance formed during soybean growth. Soybean isoflavones are similar in structure to estrogens, because they are extracted from plants, so we often call soybean isoflavones phytoestrogens.
The estrogen effect of soybean isoflavone is a two-way regulation.
Because soybean isoflavone has a similar structure to estrogen in the body, when there is too much estrogen in our body, it can help weaken the effect of real estrogen and reduce adverse reactions caused by high estrogen.
When the original estrogen in our body is insufficient, soybean isoflavone can play a supplementary role to help regulate the estrogen level in our body.
According to the 2016 new edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents, adults are advised to eat 25g of soybeans or the same amount of bean products every day to meet our body’s needs for protein and nutrition.
Asians who eat soy products regularly have a lower record of breast cancer than Western countries, thanks to soy milk. Some studies have shown that moderate consumption of soy products will not only prevent breast cancer, but will reduce the occurrence of breast cancer.
Therefore, don’t be too scared to drink soya-bean milk any more, you can drink it at ease!
Soymilk cannot be used to regulate estrogen in the body.
Some girls may think that since soybean isoflavone can help regulate estrogen, if the estrogen level in the body is too low, just drink soybean milk hard. !
It’s not.
If the problem of low estrogen level is really caused by diseases, the best method is hormone replacement therapy, because soybean isoflavones are only similar in structure and are not so magical in terms of hormone activity and therapeutic effect, so soybean isoflavones cannot be used to replace drugs.
However, there is one thing Sa Jie needs to remind everyone, that is, drink soya-bean milk, must drink ripe!
Soymilk contains a dangerous ingredient called [saponin]. Raw soybean milk also contains an antitrypsin, which will reduce the ability of gastric juice to digest protein and can only be destroyed by heating to 100 ℃.
Saponins in soya-bean milk will be destroyed after boiling at high temperature and will not cause poisoning. When soya-bean milk is heated to 80 ℃ to 90 ℃, there will be false boiling: saponins will expand by heat and produce a large amount of foam. If the soya-bean milk is mistaken for boiling and the heating is stopped at this time, such soya-bean milk does not really boil and contains a large amount of saponins.
If you drink a lot of this kind of soya-bean milk, it will cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension, dizziness and other poisoning symptoms, which can seriously cause dehydration and electrolyte disturbance. If the rescue is not timely, it will endanger your life.
In order to avoid poisoning, we drink soya-bean milk must be completely boiled. If you drink ground soya-bean milk bought outside, you should boil it with a big fire first, then turn to a small fire and continue to boil it thoroughly for 5 minutes, so that saponins can be fully destroyed and you can drink it at ease.