Soy Food and Semen Quality - Essay Example

This paper also provides brief summaries of the articles for easy analysis and understanding of the subject matter. The article reports the inverse relationship between the consumption of soy products and isoflavone compounds with respect to sperm count. It states the findings of the original research that men who consumes soy food at an average of one-half serving per day will likely to have lower concentrations of sperm cells. It also highlights that the effects of soy products on sperm productions are heightened on people who are obese or overweight.

The article reports on the results of the experiments on animals and points out that there is insufficient evidence that will prove the effects on human reproduction at this point. It also mentions the 15 soy-based foods that were used by Dr Jorge Chavarro and his colleagues on their research: "tofu, tempeh, soy sausages, bacon, burgers and mince, soy milk, cheese, yoghurt and ice cream, and soy products such as roasted nuts, drinks, powders and energy bars."(1) It also relays the conclusion of the research which stated that the inverse relationship between the soy products and sperm count is more evident on people with higher sperm concentration and who are overweight.B. Research Article: Soy food and isoflavone intake in relation to semen quality parameters among men from an infertility clinicPrevious researches prior to their study proved the adverse effects of high concentrations of isoflavone compounds which are found on soy-based products on animals but data on its effects on human beings are limited.

Chavarro et al. (2) test this relationship on human beings through semen analysis. The semen samples came from 99 qualified male donors and where analyzed at Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center. These men were also asked to provide information on their diet involving the 15 soy foods during their last 3 months of consumption. For the statistical analysis, they used linear regression on the male consumption of soy foods and quantile regression for the sperm concentration distribution.

The results show that there is an inverse relationship with the soy food consumption and sperm concentration. The results were more seen on the 90th and 75th percentile or those with higher sperm concentrations and on the obese males. The authors conclude that higher intakes of soy foods and soy isoflavones are related with lower sperm concentrations among males.III. ASSESSMENTFor the truthfulness of the media report based on the original research article, the news article has reported the relationship between intakes of soy products with sperm concentrations similar with the findings of the research.

The report has cited the important facts in the research study that will prove the linkage of soy foods and sperm concentrations. However, the research article did not focus much on the actual serving size of the soy products but more on the amount of soy food intakes. Although the survey that they used on getting