Rapid Responses to:

RESEARCH:
Sanjay Kinra, K V Rameshwar Sarma, Ghafoorunissa, Vishnu Vardhana Rao Mendu, Radhakrishnan Ravikumar, Viswanthan Mohan, Ian B Wilkinson, John R Cockcroft, George Davey Smith, and Yoav Ben-Shlomo
Effect of integration of supplemental nutrition with public health programmes in pregnancy and early childhood on cardiovascular risk in rural Indian adolescents: long term follow-up of Hyderabad nutrition trial
BMJ 2008; 337: a605 [Abstract] [Full text]
*Rapid Responses: Submit a response to this article

Rapid Responses published:

[Read Rapid Response] High soya diets can lower sperm counts
Ellen CG Grant   (29 July 2008)

High soya diets can lower sperm counts 29 July 2008
Top
Ellen CG Grant,
physician and medical gynaecologist
Kingston-upon-Thames, KT2 7JU

Send response to journal:
Re: High soya diets can lower sperm counts

Kinra and collegues report a more favourable profile of cardiovascular disease risk factors in adolescence when mothers and children had been given a nutritional supplement made from a corn-soya blend and soyabean oil.

Testicular development was checked by the adolescent boys assessing their testicular volume. It might have been helpful if semen analysis had also been used. Chavarro and colleagues from Harvard School of Public Health have just reported a significant inverse association between soy food intake and sperm concentration. Of men attending an infertility clinic, those in the highest category of soy food intake had 41 million sperm/ml less than men who did not consume soy foods. Soy food and soy isoflavone intake were unrelated to sperm motility, sperm morphology or ejaculate volume.

Clearly improved nutrition is beneficial during pregnancy and early development. Use of a range of protein sources may be inconvenient in rural India but could be much safer for normal sexual development.

1 Kinra S, Rameshwar Sarma KV, Ghafoorunissa, et al. Effect of integration of supplemental nutrition with public health programmes in pregnancy and early childhood on cardiovascular risk in rural Indian adolescents: long term follow-up of Hyderabad nutrition trial. BMJ 2008;337:a605.

2 Chavarro JE, Toth TL, Sadio SM, Hauser R. Soy food and isoflavone intake in relation to semen quality parameters among men from an infertility clinic. Human Reprod 2008 July 23 [Epub ahead of print]

Competing interests: None declared