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EARTHDATE: July 27, 2008

Official News page 8


REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU TOFU WAS BAD FOR YOU!

by Hazed

Men, beware: foodstuffs containing soy may make your sperm count drop, according to a study reported in the journal Human Reproduction. Scientists found just one portion every two days can halve the sperm concentration because plant oestrogens in foods such as tofu, soy mince or soy milk may interfere with hormonal signals.

So guys, if you're looking for an excuse to avoid yucky stuff like tofu, here you go!

The study was carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health. They looked at the diets of 99 men who had attended a fertility clinic with their partners and provided a semen sample. The men were divided into four groups depending on the amount of soy they ate, and when the sperm concentrations of the men in the high-soy group was compared to the low-soy group, there was a significant difference.

However, there must be more to it than this, because soy consumption in many parts of Asia is significantly higher than even the maximum in these volunteers, and there is no indication of fertility problems in those regions.

Still, if you're trying to have children, it's a good excuse to never have to eat disgusting tofu ever again. But please note: this does not mean that you can eat lots of tofu as a contraceptive.


Watermelon affects libido

In other food-health news, it turns out that watermelon juice has ingredients that deliver and effect to the body's blood vessels similar to that well-known drug whose names begins with V, but which I can't be specific about unless I want the email version of the Star to be caught up in lots of spam filters! Get the full details in this Science Daily article.


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