Does it lose the "estrogen effect" because the amount of isoflavones are reduced? I'm not sure I understand your concern. It is true that in fermented soy foods the hydrolysis will cause more of the isoflavones to occur as aglycones. The isoflavones of unprocessed soy beans will occur as glycosides however, thanks to in vivo hydrolysis there will be hardly any difference at all between the availability of isoflavone aglycones and isoflavone glycosides.
We eat most of our soy as isolated soy protein which is almost entirely protein. What is your concern here?
We can eat extremely copious amounts of processed soy which acts like estrogen in the body.
Most people aren't aware that endocrine disruptors exist in many places and that many foods we eat possess some of the same characteristics. Chocolate, garlic, celery, coffee, grapefruit, tea, and cola have been shown to have antispermatogenic activity. The horror!
There are more than 300 plants, in 16 common families, containing estrogens that may bind with receptors of humans or wildlife. Naturally occurring estrogens are plentiful in cereals, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. Endocrine disruptors are all around us and we eat some of them every day in natural foods. I don't see anyone creating fear over fruits, cereals and vegetables. You?
The remainder of your post is nothing more than fear mongering based on junk science. To think we're turning boys into girls because they consume soy is absurd.
This study is junk and there's been a lot of criticism of it. This "study" was very small in scope and was based on recollected intake of soyfoods and not on specific diets containing soyfoods. One critic, Dr. Tammy Hedland, a researcher on male fertility issues, including soy, from the Health Sciences Center, Department of Pathology at the University of Colorado, said "This study is confounded by many issues, thus I feel the results should be viewed with a great deal of caution". She noted that the research did not find a negative relationship between soy and sperm mobility or sperm quality, which are both key factors to fertility. The study also did not determine directly what other foods, medications, supplements, existing medical conditions, sexual activities or environmental factors may have directly affected the drop in sperm count.
This researcher, Chavarro, even admitted his research is a joke. He said that many East Asian men consume much more soya than the participants in his trial and do not develop fertility problems. He speculates that his study found a link between soya and low sperm count because many of the participants were overweight or obese. Men with high levels of body fat produce more estrogen than their slim counterparts."
Wow. He spent all that time and money to determine something we've known for some time now. Nothing like grabbing for that grant money, eh?
There has been extensive human and primate research where controlled amounts of isoflavones from soy have been fed to subjects without any effect on the quantity, quality or motility of their sperm. This research has also found that soy has a preventative effect against prostate cancer.
There are also plenty of clinical studies showing that soy foods and isoflavones do not impact serum levels of testosterone or estrogen. Several of these studies have found no effects on testosterone levels even when they fed their subjects isoflavones at 20 - 30 times the normal level of consumption.
The only thing to fear is people who don't know what they're talking about or who are more interested in funding research than they are with finding the truth.
The versions of those foods that we eat are not naturally occurring. We've only been eating farm food for about 500 human generations, and living past 30 has become normal only during the last 10 generations. All the subtle effects of modern foods are not known. Just because a patch of weeds produced soybean-looking beans somewhere on Earth for the last million years doesn't mean modern soybeans are natural or safe. They should be studied with a scientist's skepticism and suspicion.