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THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF Soy ALLERGENS THE HIDDEN DANGERS SOY ALLERGENS The huge rise in allergic reactions to soy is in line with the increasing use of soy products in processed foods during the 1990s, and should be regarded as a major public health concern. oy is one of the top allergens—substances that cause allergic reactions. In the 1980s, Stuart Berger, MD, labelled soy one of the seven top allergens—one of the "sinister seven". At the time, most experts listed soy around tenth or eleventh— bad enough, but way behind peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, shellfish, fin fish and wheat. Today, soy is widely accepted as one of the "big eight" that cause immediate hypersensitivity reactions.'* Allergies are abnormal inflammatory responses of the immune system to dust, pollen, a food or some other substance. Those that involve an antibody called immunoglobulin E (IgE) occur immediately or within an hour. Reactions may include coughing, sneezing, runny nose, hives, diarrhoea, facial swelling, shortness of breath, a swollen tongue, diffi- culty swallowing, lowered blood pressure, excessive perspiration, fainting, anaphylactic shock or even death.*° Delayed allergic responses to soy are less dramatic, but are even more common. These are caused by antibodies known as immunoglobulins A, G or M (IgA, IgG or IgM) and occur anywhere from two hours to days after the food is eaten. These have been linked to sleep disturbances, bedwetting, sinus and ear infections, crankiness, joint pain, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal woes and other mysterious symptoms.*” Food "intolerances", "sensitivities" and "idiosyncrasies" to soy are commonly called "food allergies", but differ from true allergies in that they are not caused by immune sys- tem reactions but by little-understood or unknown metabolic mechanisms.’° Strictly speaking, gas and bloating—common reactions to soy and other beans—are not true aller- gic responses. However, they may serve as warnings of the possibility of a larger clinical picture involving allergen-related gastrointestinal damage. PROFIT vs RISK The soybean industry knows that some people experience severe allergic reactions to its products. In a recent petition to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Protein Technologies International (PTI) identified "allergenicity" as one of the "most likely potential adverse effects associated with ingestion of large amounts of soy products". Yet PTI somehow concluded that "the data do not support that they would pose a substantial threat to the health of the US population"."” This statement is hardly reassuring to the many children and adults who suffer allergies to soy products. And it ignores a substantial body of evidence published during the 1990s showing that some of these people learn for the first time about their soy allergies after experiencing an unexpectedly severe or even life-threatening reaction. Severe reactions to soy are rare compared to reactions to peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish, but Swedish researchers recently concluded that "Soy has been underestimated as a cause of food anaphylaxis" (Foucard T., Malmheden Yman, I., Allergy 1999, 53(3):261-265)."' by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN © 2004 From Chapter 23 of her book The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food (NewTrends Publishing, 2004) Website: http://www.wholesoystory.com A BAD HAMBURGER The Swedes began looking into a possible soybean connection after a young girl suffered an asthma attack and died after eating a hamburger that contained only 2.2 per cent soy protein. A team of researchers collected data on all fatal and life-threatening reactions caused by food between 1993 and 1996 in Sweden, and found that the soy-in- the-hamburger case was not a fluke and that soy was indeed the culprit. They evaluated Website: http://www.wholesoystory.com NEXUS * 25 THE RISE IN SOY ALLERGIES AUGUST —- SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com