The Enhanced 18-Month Well-Baby Assessment: Fill & Download for Free

My sister is in the IT field and has been associated with Google for 2 years.The following are a few reasons why she just loves her workplace -1. Eco-friendly approach for employees:Google has the whole lot that an employee would presume from the second-largest company in the United States, in terms of marketplace capitalization: Push-bikes and electric cars to get staff to conventions, gaming centers, biological botanical gardens, and eco-friendly cabinets.Google wants to create its employees’ lives stress-free, and they continuously search for ways to improve self-confidence, the healthiness, and well-being of its employees. Beyond it, they have an eco-friendly approach towards nature.2. Time-to-time medical assurance:Google work environment offers its employees an on-site general practitioner, nurses, and medical facilities for the health care coverage to keep the google workers happy as well as in good physical shape.The deep care shown for the employees makes them realize to work more and be honest with the company at all times.Googlers can travel deprived of any bodily worries and work with a stress-free mind.Employees get the insurance done under which they are insured with travel coverage in addition to emergency assistance on both personal and professional fronts.3. Parenthood vacation:Google is the best company to work for, has the rule to offer some of the best paid parental vacations for new parentage.The employees get paid leave for 12 weeks or even up to 18 weeks depending upon the situation; let’s say if the father is the primary caregiver and he is the one to take care of the baby.Women are still somewhat allowed to get paid leave up to 22 weeks under the section of motherhood vacation.Google upkeeps so much about new parents that it offers to all newly become mothers a one-on-one discussion to make out their scheduling for daycare possibilities like they get $500 or so to spend on baby bonding period and as well as for childcare centers on one of its sites.4. Post demise support:Google a great place to work, even offers post-death benefits to departed employees’ families.If a Google employee passes away at any point in time, his/ her national spouse gets 50% of the employee’s income every year for the subsequent 10 years after the death of the employee.In addition, surviving partners can revel in all the departed employee’s stock options instantly commended.Children of a dead employee receive around $1,000 monthly from Google until they become 19 years old if they are round-the-clock school-going children.5. Helping hand for advance education:Google substantially also offers a Global education leave program for every employee who wants to go for further higher studies in the same country or in another.They allow each employee to take an absence of leave from work for that specific time to pursue advanced schooling.They have an advanced education program from which employees can feel relaxed in terms of skipping from paying higher fee structures to universities.Above all, the most interesting thing is that all of the expense for ensuring further education is covered by Google itself.Yes, Google bears the study expense if any employee wants to pursue Masters Education so as to get more intellectual business knowledge which could be helpful to the organization.6. Sharing of ideas with top management:Google enables its employees to share their ideas or thoughts freely with the top management and the sensitivity of being cared for has made Google the best firm to work for over and over.A weekly and/ or monthly (depends upon the decision of the top management) company-wide town hall meetings are scheduled wherein any employee can ask anything to the senior management person who is addressing the queries of the employees in the meeting.That could be the CEO, COO, Managing Director, or any VP level person. And employees are stimulated to share their opinion with their peers as well as with senior management on the same call, at the same time as the meeting.7. Profound perquisites (perks):Google basically plans up the idea for best office perks, which now spread over even if an employee dies.From the on-site physicians and hair cutters to the epicure dining hall, the varieties of cuisine at lunch, each perk at Google has a planned purpose, considering keeping employees happy and at peace at the workplace.8. Beyond compare career breaks:From the time when Google has become one of the most renowned technology companies throughout the sphere, it offers its employees better job prospects than whether they should choose to leave the Googleplex or not.The employees get so good opportunities year by year which is a real factor why people choose to work at Google and stay here for long years.The company offers an enhanced growth year on year if one has really performed beyond the imagination.It also offers progression within the firm, whether it is for junior-level people, middle management people or higher-level management chances.9. A good sagacity of contribution:Google offers its employees with a good sense of contributing to the worldwide populace.Google staff positively influences society with the applications in addition to the technology they work on.These technologies would assuredly benefit humankind; for instance, self-driving cars could allow its travelers to catch up on sleep throughout their travels.The mishap rate is mysterious; with mere 11 misfortunes in 1.7 million miles driven approx. Google is developing new wearable technology likewise contact lenses with technology that could read the user’s blood glucose stage, which is highly advantageous to diabetic sufferers.10. Liberty to bring own ideas:Google only looks for the finest and liveliest minds, and employees are constantly wide-open to other incredible employees and brainy intellectuals.Being around other intelligent intellectuals allows imaginative work surroundings, teamwork and disorderly improvement.Google offers its staff’s one of the most advanced work environment principles. Google cares so much about the invention that it has laid down nine principles of novelty.One of those principles deeply inspires its employees to spend 20% of their time tracking innovative thoughts that they are obsessive about.Products and applications are widely admired, for instance, Google Newsflash, Google Heads-up, and Google Charts (Maps) Street View, have been inherited from this principle.11. In-house espresso bar:To boost teamwork and connection between employees of every department, Google cafes or say spacious cafeterias have been put in with long tabletops to bring together all employees at one platform especially those who are working on the same premises.The micro-kitchens are very friendly wherein employees come in, do get-together, sit and discuss any of their ideas; their joyous moments, any hitches (if they face any), their work-related discussions, their happiness or gloomy parts while on their break. It has helped to get them close to each other professionally and personally too.12. Strong & adaptive work culture:Google flourishes on the conversation of ideas and has formed an immensely strong yet adaptive principle that offers employees access to far-fetched people from corner to corner in regards to job designation and position.To keep its young and enthusiastic employees pumped up all the time, they listen to every employee’s queries or concepts and try to figure out if that can be adopted in the organization and/or how well it can be useful for the entire organization.Overall, the organizational culture of Google is very friendly and an adaptive culture without keeping any second thought in mind.13. Innovative initiatives:In the preceding year, the company is in full swing with two new inventiveness to help employees towards their career track.They recently have thrown ‘Career Program‘ which allows women professionals to do diverse training and involvements who have been out of the personnel for a year or extra and make them step again into the digital public space.Basically, Google company values every employee to be part of it and bring new initiatives that can be launched at the organization level.The purpose is to create awareness among others how they are friendly, strong-minded and lively enough.14. Four-legged friendly environment:To help its employees to be filled with cheerfulness and self-confidence, employees at Google are permitted to take their pets to the workplace.Some Google employees pronounce that being able to take their four-legged friend to work keeps their dynamism levels up and around, in addition to this bring delight in other employees.Not necessarily they have to take care of them during working hours since they are domestic pets, so they also listen to what their “chief” or “pal” is saying.Pets are comprehensible too, so it helps the holder (a Google employee) of the pet to simply concentrate on work. They can take them out during break time and introduce their pets to other staff members.

“Does controlled crying really work?Controlled-crying techniques may help some babies sleep through the night, but for many exhausted new parents, it's just a recipe for more tears all round. By Amanda HootonBy Amanda HootonFebruary 19, 2015 — 4.07pm"To sleep, perchance to dream," says poor Hamlet, obsessing about sleep, and also about death. By the time my daughter was eight months old, I knew how he felt. On a good night she would wake three times; on a bad night, six. Until I had a baby, I had no real idea what a profound lack of sleep actually feels like. "Torture," supplied my best friend, a doctor (and a mother). "It's a recognised form of torture." I was alternately exhausted and desperate; fatalistic and furious. I couldn't imagine it ever ending; at the same time, I felt I'd do anything to make it end. Even, God forbid, read a baby sleep manual.There are as many theories about making babies sleep as there are stars in the sky, to use a cliché (which is all you're capable of, after eight months of no sleep). But the vast majority offer some variation of controlled crying. The basic philosophy is that leaving healthy, clean, well-fed babies to cry for varying amounts of time until they fall asleep on their own is physiologically and psychologically okay.Tiny tears: a wee bairn crying over spilt milk. Possibly.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGESThere are varying degrees of severity along the controlled-crying spectrum. At one end is "extinction" (also known as "crying it out"), whereby you simply close the door on your baby and come back in the morning. In the middle are all sorts of techniques, where you return and briefly comfort your baby, usually with increasing stretches of time between visits - five minutes, 10, 15 and so on. Finally, there's "adult fading" or "camping out", where you remain in your baby's room, but over many nights you move, in a kind of glacier-creep, towards the door.Whatever variant you use, controlled crying is big business. It's easy to teach, and if it works, it generally works fast: within a week for most babies. The two best-selling baby-sleep authors worldwide, Gina Ford (a maternity nurse with no formal qualifications) and Dr Richard Ferber (a Harvard professor of neurology), both advocate variants of controlled crying, and have each sold about a million copies of their books. In Australia, everyone from widely respected individuals like Baby Love author Robin Barker to government-funded clinics and websites support it.AdvertisementBig calm: Sydney paediatrician Howard Chilton.CREDIT:JACKY GHOSSEIN"It's very largely promoted, largely offered," agrees Sarah Blunden, the head of paediatric sleep research at Central Queensland University. "If you're a doctor, you get less than six hours of infant sleep training [at university]. So GPs go to the literature, and what they find is controlled crying techniques. We did a review that found 46 of 52 [child-sleep related] articles reported controlled crying. So, in turn, this is what you're offered when you're a parent and you go to a doctor."Nobody says controlled crying is easy, of course. Most parents hate listening to their baby scream. One friend of mine, a gentle and loving woman, used extinction techniques on both her children. "I used to walk around the block," she said, shaking her head. "I'd come back and stand outside the house. If I could still hear them crying, I'd go around again.""You don't want to do it," said another, who still winces at the memory of closing the bedroom door with her toddler's little hands trying to open it from the other side. "But in the end, you're just so tired, and the family's falling apart, and you have no choice."For lots of people, it proves too much. As many as 70 per cent of parents report that "they either started controlled crying and stopped, or that they didn't do it at all," says Blunden. "And estimates are that it only works for about 60 per cent of babies anyway."But what are your alternatives? Well, according to no-cry advocates like Elizabeth Pantley or Pinky McKay, you can co-sleep with your baby, or comfort them without letting them cry. But even the staunchest no-criers acknowledge that these methods take a long time, a lot of patience and require high sensitivity to baby behaviour.In my case, my partner and I tried a bit of everything. We tried co-sleeping. We tried no-cry techniques. We tried controlled crying - but the longest we could stick it out was 10 minutes, and then we almost always comforted her to sleep. We patted and stroked her (often a controlled-crying no-no), we picked her up and cuddled her (ditto). We tried camping out; we did a ridiculous amount of elaborate creeping out of her room (also a no-no: you're supposed to leave "confidently"). And through it all, with marvellous consistency, our daughter continued to wake.In the midst of this hell, I read Baby on Board, by Howard Chilton. Chilton is a paediatrician based at Sydney's Prince of Wales Private Hospital and Royal Hospital for Women (RHW), and he gave hardly any sleep advice at all. But on his pages, I heard the reassuring sound of things I had believed in back before I became a crazy woman: scientific knowledge, moderation, patience. "Your baby is normal, you are normal," he seemed to say. "This too shall pass."Howard Chilton is 68, a slim man with short grey hair and a keen glance, and he has that trait particular to doctors of looking extremely clean: clean hands and fingernails, a very clean ear as he turns to order from the cafe waiter. He's wearing a neatly pressed, short-sleeved blue shirt and pale slacks, and he still has traces of his native Yorkshire accent. He was director of the neonatal unit at RHW from 1978 to 2000, when he left to focus on clinical work, his writing (his most recent book, Your Cherished Baby, was published last year) and the practice of what he calls "reassurology"."What I don't like about controlled crying is this default reaction," he says. "This belief that babies have a 'sensitive window', and if you don't 'teach' them to sleep, they'll never learn and they'll always wake up." He laughs. "It's a good story to scare parents and make them buy your book! But it doesn't happen to be true."So what is true? Are there any scientific, uncontested facts about baby sleep?Yes. And for Chilton, fact one is that, thanks to the evolution of our narrow, twisted pelvises (to assist upright walking) and our babies' large heads (to accommodate big brains), all human babies are born developmentally premature, and, like premature infants of any species, need a lot of high-intensity, contact-based care for a long time.Fact two is that standard baby nourishment - breast milk - is very low in protein, so it's digested quickly and needs replacing frequently. (Ultrasound studies show that a baby's stomach full of breast milk empties in about 35 minutes; a breast fills up in about the same time.) These two facts alone - high care and frequent feeding requirements - suggest that young babies are unlikely to be much good at lying peacefully in a room on their own for 12 hours.Fact three. Until six months, babies have no grasp of object permanence. They cannot understand that when an object is removed from their sight, it still exists. So if a parent leaves, they have, in the baby's mind, gone forever. Cue panic.Fact four. Contrary to what many controlled-crying techniques suggest, prior to six months, babies cannot "learn" to sleep on their own. "Certainly not," says Chilton. "They have no learning centres in their brains [yet]. In terms of a reproducible result ­- 'We've done this today, so this is my understanding of what will happen tomorrow' - that just doesn't happen before six months."As Dr Harriet Hiscock, associate professor and paediatrician at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, puts it: "There has been some concern that people look at [controlled crying] strategies and go, 'Oh, let's do it with a six-week-old or a three-month-old.' That's not developmentally appropriate."So what about the success stories with babies younger than six months? I know a mother who implemented a controlled-crying regimen when her daughter was three months old. It was horrible, she said, but by four months, her daughter was sleeping through most nights."Before six months, you're just extinguishing," explains Chilton matter-of-factly. "Eventually, the baby just gives up." Fact five: "extinguishment" is the name given to evolution's last effort at infant survival in extremis. Loss of parental contact is a serious danger signal for young babies, and they're designed to cry and cry until it's restored. But beyond a certain point, even a hysterical baby will stop crying, often quite suddenly. (Indeed, parents trying controlled crying often report this phenomenon.) This is because, in an evolutionary sense, an unprotected crying baby is broadcasting its whereabouts to predators. Instinct tells it that its parents have vanished, and that the sabre-toothed tiger that killed them is close. It falls silent in order to survive.It's thought, however, that such a baby is still under stress. In one 2012 study of controlled crying in babies as young as four months, researchers found that by the third day of the program, babies had stopped crying at sleep times, but their levels of the stress hormone cortisol were elevated. As the researchers put it, "Although the infants exhibited no behavioural cue that they were experiencing distress ... [they] continued to experience high levels of physiological distress, as reflected in their cortisol scores."Of course, many parents never have to think about studies like this, and what these results may suggest about what's happening to their babies. Some babies are naturally great sleepers. (The parents of such paragons should give thanks each day on bended knee and never mention this fact to other parents. Ever.) But as many as 40 per cent of babies continue to wake through the night past a year; for the parents of these babies, what's the bottom line? Controlled crying is horrible for everyone - but if it works, and the whole family gets more sleep, is it really a problem?Jo* is a very positive, warm-sounding woman in her mid-30s. She lives in rural NSW, and when she gave birth to her first son, she took a very natural approach to sleep. "I knew there was no scientific research behind the controlled crying, regimented-routine stuff," she recalls. "But with our second, there were a lot of mums in our area using a kind of 'cry-it-out' method, and I guess I was led to believe by them that my first son's sleep wasn't great; that I should do better with my second." (Jo's first son was nearly two at the time, and sometimes waking once a night.) "I come from a health background, so it's incredible to me that I listened to them. But, I guess, with a second baby, you don't see your [early childhood] nurse so often, or any health workers - I think that probably increased my vulnerability."So my second son, Ben*, was born, and he was a completely wonderful sleeper - from 8pm till 4am, sort of thing. But nevertheless, when he was three months old, I started this 'wonderful' routine."Within three or four weeks, Ben "was more often than not crying himself to sleep while I sat outside the room and cried as well. Within two months, we had a baby who was waking five or six times a night; a baby who was petrified to go to bed; would not let himself go to sleep anywhere else but in his cot: never in the car, never in the pram. So the sleep training that was supposed to maintain this wonderful sleep absolutely destroyed his sleep."Jo stopped the routine after four months, but "I feel it has caused damage," she says. "My husband tends not to be sure, but I guess for me ... because I've read a lot of research, and I've stumbled across other parents who've seen similar things with their children, I do feel that's the cause." At 18 months old, Ben was diagnosed as having a sensory processing disorder. Part of this problem may have existed at birth, says Jo, "but at the very least, controlled crying has exacerbated sensitivities that were there."Howard Chilton would agree. "It's a question of brain development," he says, leaning forward. "When you're born, you're just a limbic brain. That's the threat-and-reward part of the brain: it responds to fear, food, contact. Whereas the frontal lobes - the intelligent, thinking part of your brain - are not connected at all. So we adults can take the impulses from our limbic system and say, 'No, that's a cardboard tiger, calm down.' We're not at the mercy of our limbic brain, as a baby is."During your first year of life, you wire up connections between your limbic system and the frontal lobes which help you regulate stress, and establish your feelings of security and self-worth. There are up to a thousand connections a second being made in your first 12 months. Part of that wiring-up is genetic. But part of it is environmental ... Stress is part of your environment, and it triggers the release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol, particularly, has a really negative effect on neural connections."So if you've got a baby in a Romanian orphanage, whose brain is bathed in stress hormones for its first year, that baby's brain develops to anticipate further stress. It has almost no ability to mop up cortisol, which means it will always, even as an adult, have a higher level of background stress, get panicked and upset more easily, and find it harder to calm down."He pauses. "If, on the other hand, you're in a loving home in Australia, and you get picked up and cuddled when you cry, you develop lots of cortisol mop-up capacity. You're good at being calm, and when you get put under stress, you're good at getting yourself back to a calm state quickly. Plus, when babies are reassured and soothed and comforted, their brains get flooded with reward hormones ... beta-endorphin, prolactin, dopamine. Beta-endorphin and dopamine have been shown in the lab to enhance brain connections."So our brains are being permanently shaped, at least in part, by how we're being comforted at night, before we're even one year old? It's hard to believe such a fundamental thing could be happening so quickly, and so irreversibly. "It is," says Chilton inexorably. "After 12 months, it's in your hardware. You can modify the basic system, but it takes a great deal of deep cognitive work - and I often wonder how good any rewiring actually is. The basic stuff about stress is done by one year."Susie* is a thoughtful, sensitive woman who works as a teacher in Melbourne. She never imagined she'd be "the sort of person who did controlled crying", until she began to suspect, 12 months after the birth of her daughter Poppy*, that she was suffering from postnatal depression. "A friend of ours who'd done it with her kids sat us down and had a very sane talk about the importance of the whole family's health," she recalls. "So we really committed to it."It took a lot longer than the books said: more like a fortnight than three nights. But the first three were by far the worst - it was totally brutal. Both my partner and I were going in and out, but after a while, going in just seemed to make her worse, so we got really tough and just let her cry till she fell asleep. One night, that took three hours." It "was very hard to stick to our guns", but within a week, Poppy was sleeping from 7.30pm to 5.30am most nights. Even now, however, six months later, "on average, we still have one night a week where we have to let her cry herself to sleep once in the night."The weirdest thing about it was that it actually seems to have made her more cheerful during the day," says Susie. "Part of that is probably just that she's getting more sleep. But it does seem to have made her more confident and settled. I would never have done it if I'd thought, even after one night, it was doing her any harm. You've got to stay confident and remember you're doing it out of love: love for them, and also for yourself. I just feel like this big cloud lifted from my life."Postnatal depression is at the heart of the controlled-crying debate: if a baby doesn't sleep, neither do its parents, which is a risk factor for depression, which is terrible for everybody. One of the most famous studies about controlled crying, in fact, was conducted in Melbourne in 2006 to assess the impacts of baby sleep on maternal wellbeing. Results showed that controlled-crying-trained babies (taught "progressive settling" or "camping out" from eight months of age) did sleep slightly better than their non-trained counterparts, but by two years old, those improvements were statistically insignificant. "But the mums had significantly fewer postnatal depression symptoms: 11 per cent versus 22 per cent," explains Harriet Hiscock, who conceived the study.In the original research, there were no measures taken to see how the babies themselves were affected by controlled crying. But in 2012, researchers published a follow-up of 70 per cent of the original subjects. This time they assessed child mental health, too, via cortisol measurements. "At six years, we found that there was absolutely no difference between the two groups, either in sleep, behaviour or parent mental health," says Hiscock."We still don't know much about how [early brain development] works," she acknowledges. "And we still don't know how high cortisol levels need to be, or for how long, [to cause damage] in babies." This lack of knowledge could be significant: as the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc (AAIMHI) said in a 2013 position paper: "No studies on controlled crying that we have reviewed stand up to rigorous scrutiny..." The paper concluded that "the widely practised technique of controlled crying is not consistent with infants' and toddlers' needs for optimal emotional and psychological health and may have unintended negative consequences." In fact, the AAIMHI categorically advises against controlled crying before the age of three.Hiscock, for her part, suspects that "when you do these strategies, babies' cortisol levels do go up, but after they start sleeping well, they go down. So is that temporary rise detrimental? In an otherwise healthy family? Probably not." She pauses. "If you're doing it for three months, then maybe that's problematic."Chilton agrees. "What's really important about controlled crying is dosage and context," he says. "You might have friends who control-cried their baby. They put little Johnny to bed, two minutes later he's asleep and he's never woken [during the night] since ... But maybe parents are walking away for 10 minutes, then 20, then 40, then an hour. Finally, the baby settles down. And the next night he's better, he only screams for 10, 15, 25 minutes ... Then he's fine for a week. Then he gets a cold, all bets are off, and they start again. Ten minutes, 20 minutes, two hours. It accumulates over a period of time: that's when you've got to ask yourself the question about harm."Of course, if you ask a parent, 'Did you damage your baby?', what do you think parents are going to say?" he adds. "The reason so many people come out and say, 'Look, I did this and my kids are fine,' is because of the inherent adaptability of the human being. People are incredibly resilient: there are 50,000 ways you'll end up with a lovely person. But is he the best he could have been? We don't know the answer to that. What we can say, on the basis of the anthropology and the biochemistry and the neurobiology, is that there is a way to optimise that time when they're wiring."Where does all this leave parents? Just as confused, and even more worried than ever, perhaps. Howard Chilton smiles sympathetically. "This period of time is actually really, really short," he says gently. "Try to remember that."Then again, he goes on, "I've seen some really sleep-deprived mothers in my time, and it is close to insanity. You've just got to be very pragmatic. If I see an exhausted mother, from an otherwise loving household, who says, 'If you don't help me settle this baby I'm going to go crazy,' and you look at her determined little child of 10 or 12 months, and you think, 'He's got her right where he wants her': I'll have her camping out in a heartbeat."Just do the best you can to get the best outcome for the whole family. Because the worst outcome is that the family falls apart."In our family's case, and certainly without our help, our daughter's sleep has improved over time. Now, at 2 1/2, she often wakes once, briefly, in the night, and I go in to her, and I can live with that.Indeed, some part of me knows that it's precious time. Just the two of us, alone together, there in the dark.* Names have been changed”

I compiled tons of articles on this subject because I was curious.In summary:Soy inhibits some digestion enzymes, which among other things reduce amino acid uptake.Soy causes red blood cells to clump which impairs your blood's ability to carry oxygenSoy distorts the balance of hormones in your body via phytoestrogensHormones in soy can interfere with your thyroid which can cause goiters and metabolism problems and diabetes.Immune system problemsThyroid issuesNeurological issuesThere are more....Also people in Asia don't eat as much soy as everyone thinks...Let me expand on all of that :Soy is one of those foods we only started eating recently. In contrast to fruits and vegetables and grass fed meats and wild fish that we’ve been eating for millions of years, soy has lots of things in that are relatively foreign to our body. In general when you put foreign things in your body, the effects are negative. In contrast, evolution has made it such that we benefit from many things we are used to getting from more traditional foods. Research on soy is slowly building - we probably don’t know all the ways in which it is bad, but here is some of what we’ve already learned.Enzyme inhibitors & Phytates & Blood ClottingSoybeans also contain potent enzyme inhibitors. These inhibitors block uptake of trypsin and other enzymes that the body needs for protein digestion. Normal cooking does not deactivate these harmful “antinutrients,” that can cause serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and can lead to chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake.They can produce serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. In test animals, diets high in trypsin inhibitors cause enlargement and pathological conditions of the pancreas, including cancer. [1]Soybeans are extremely high in phytic acid, which binds to minerals like calcium, iron, and zinc, impairing their absorption.Red blood cell clumpingsoybeans also contain hemagglutinin, a clot promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together. These clustered blood cells are unable to properly absorb oxygen for distribution to the body’s tissues, and cannot help in maintaining good cardiac health. [1]Fermented soy is less bad, but it’s still undesirable, in that it addresses only some of the problems associated with soy. Fermented soy products include soy sauce, miso soup, tempeh, and natto.the act of fermenting soybeans does deactivate both trypsin inhibitors and hemagglutinin, precipitation and cooking do not. Even though these enzyme inhibitors are reduced in levels within precipitated soy products like tofu, they are not altogether eliminated. Only after a long period of fermentation (as in the creation of miso or tempeh) are the phytate and “antinutrient” levels of soybeans reduced, making their nourishment available to the human digestive system. The high levels of harmful substances remaining in precipitated soy products leave their nutritional value questionable at best, and in the least, potentially harmful.”[9]Hormone Disruption, Fertility, and Gender Behavior ChangesRat studies are interesting in that they can show just how much a single food can affect fertility.[22][11]From the 2nd generation of hamsters on a diet of GM soy, there were 40 pups of which 25% died, whereas the number was 52 from those hamsters on a normal hamster diet, and 78 from the hamsters on a diet of normal soy. Of Group Four, all the hamsters lost the ability to reproduce with the exception of one female. The female produced 16 pups, of which ?th died. Of the 3rd generation hamsters on GM soy (Group three), many of the animals were sterile. ... In a study using hamsters and rats, Russian Dr. Irina Ermakova, carried out experiments in 2005 whereby half the babies from mother rats died from GM soy died within 3 weeks.[3]For example, back in 2005, Dr. Irina Ermakova, one of the senior scientists with the Russian National Academy of Sciences, reported that more than 50 percent of the babies from mother rats that were fed GM soy died within three weeks, compared to a 10 percent death rate among the controls.Again, that’s a death rate five times higher than normal when the GM soy was fed to the male rats, it changed the color of their testicles from pink to blue. ... And this reminded me of what they had studied in Italy, where they fed mice genetically modified soy and they also had changes in their testicles, including damage to the young sperm cells. [5]after Ermakova’s feeding trials, her laboratory started feeding all the rats in the facility a commercial rat chow using GM soy. Within two months, the infant mortality facility-wide reached 55%.[6]It's interesting to look at the mechanism there.Phytoestrogens stimulate the production of sex hormone-binding globulin, known as SHBG, and then inhibit estradiol or testosterone from binding to it. By displacing the natural hormones, phytoestrogen reduces the amount of hormone circulating in the blood. In addition, the presence of phytoestrogens inhibits the activity of enzymes needed to produce sex hormone, which causes a lower hormone level. ... Phytoestrogens binding to estrogen receptors also block the binding of estrogen, which affects your hormones' ability to function.[20]Soy products contain glyceollins which are antiestrogenic phytoalexins.[25]Hormones from soy enter the blood stream. [19]Fitzpatrick estimated that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent (based on body weight) of at least five birth control pills per day. Scientists have known for years that soy-based formula can cause thyroid problems in babies. Approximately 25 per cent of bottle-fed children in the US receive soy-based formula - a much higher percentage than in other parts of the Western world.[1]Infants fed soy formula ingest six to 11 times more genistein on a bodyweight basis than the level known to cause hormonal effects in adults.[22]It's worth noting that there are some studies that are conflicting. Some studies look at how much soy people say they eat and look at their hormone levels.[18] This neglects temporary variations that may result from soy consumption and so may not be the best indicator, but are interesting nonetheless.Early life soy exposure was associated with masculinized play behavior in girls at 42 months of age.Gender-role play behavior was assessed using the Preschool Activities Inventory (PSAI). Associations between infant feeding and PSAI scores at 42 months of age were assessed using linear regression.[14]Male Fertility Declines[23]Men who ate soy foods tended to have lower (but still normal, in most cases) sperm concentrations than men who ate no soy foods.[23]Indeed, recent research has indicated that soy lowers sperm count[7]It's worth noting that the men in these studies were only consuming low amounts of soy.Female fertility and hormonal cycles may be affected as wellLaboratory studies show that genistein, a phytoestrogen found in soy, may lead to a decline in fertility, ovulatory dysfunction and irregular menstrual cycles. According to a study from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, published in the April 31, 2011 issue of "Reproductive Toxicology," studies "clearly demonstrate that environmentally relevant doses of genistein have significant negative impacts on ovarian differentiation, estrous cyclicity, and fertility in the rodent model. Additional studies of reproductive function in human populations exposed to high levels of phytoestrogens during development are warranted."[21]Thyroid issues, Goiters, Autoimmune Disease & DiabetesScientists have known for years that the isoflavones in soy products can depress thyroid function and cause goiters in otherwise healthy children and adults. A combined research team of Cornell University Medical College and Long Island Community Hospital medical experts have found that children who develop Type1 diabetes are twice as likely to have been fed soy formulas as those fed all other foods This confirms concerns based on animal studies raised in the 1980’s and 1990s by Health Canada researcher Dr Fraser Scott and led to the American Academy of Pediatrics issuing their warning to pediatricians against any use of soy based formulas.[1]Soy is linked with autoimmune disease, hypothyroidism and the development of goiter and a slew of other issues which negatively affect the endocrine and reproductive systems in particular. [7]There are a number of studies on this:One study found that children with autoimmune thyroid disease are more likely to have been fed soy-based infant formula.A 1991 Japanese study found that soy consumption can suppress thyroid function and cause goiters in healthy people, especially elderly subjects.Czech researchers in 2006 reported on a study that looked at thyroid hormones and thyroid autoantibodies, along with blood levels of two isoflavones -- daidzein and genistein. The study looked at children without overt thyroid disease, who were not iodine deficient. They found a "significant positive association of genistein with thyroglobulin autoantibodies and a negative correlation with thyroid volume." They concluded that "even small differences in soy phytoestrogen intake may influence thyroid function, which could be important when iodine intake is insufficient."In 2004, researchers found that infants fed soy formula had a prolonged increase in their thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels, compared to infants fed non-soy formula.European researchers found in one study that even a week of consuming unprocessed boiled natural soybeans caused modest changes to thyroid levels.A 1997 study published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology wrote: "it was observed that an...extract of soybeans contains compounds that inhibit thyroid peroxidase- (TPO) catalyzed reactions essential to thyroid hormone synthesis."[26][27-31]It's worth noting that, some studies have found a limited correlation with thyroid function:Proponents of soy point to a recent study, frequently touted as evidence of soy's safety for the thyroid, which was published in 2006 in the journal Thyroid. The researchers looked at 14 trials involving soy, and in 13 out of 14 trials, either no effects or modest changes were noted in thyroid function as a result of soy consumption. The researchers claim that the findings provide little evidence that "in euthyroid, iodine-replete individuals, soy foods, or isoflavones adversely affect thyroid function."[26][32]There a lot of ways to slice this data and thyroid function is one metric. I'm also not clear on how "modest changes" are defined above. It may be the case that soy is problematic primarily when there are confounding issues. In any case, more studies are needed here.Intolerance/AllergiesSoy protein intolerance is commonly acknowledged and diagnosed by both pediatricians and family physicians. In the medical field the occurrence is also known as eosinophilic gastroenteritis or protein intolerance. MSPI is diagnosed through the history of an infant who displays irritable, colic-like behavior, poor growth, and abnormal stools, some of which visibly show blood. Confirmation of the diagnosis is made by a biopsy of the intestinal tissue showing an increased amount of eosinophilic cells, eroded intestinal villi, and hemorrhagic tissue. An increase in the level of eosinophilic cells may also correlate with an allergic response of the intestinal tissues due to the introduction of an allergic compound. Many physicians request that parents alter the infant’s formula, or the mother’s diet (for breastfed infants) prior to having a gastroenterologist perform an invasive biopsy, then if the symptoms diminish, or even cease, the diagnosis of MSPI is assumed.[1]Neurological ProblemsMemory lossExperts at England’s Loughborough and Oxford Universities researched the impact of soy consumption in 719 senior citizens on the Indonesian island of Java, the Daily Mail reported Saturday. Researchers determined people who ate soy at least twice a day had 20 percent less memory function that those who ate it significantly less.[1]Soy products can flood your brain with unnaturally high concentrations of two amino acids. It's not just that the levels are high. It's that food processing makes them more available than they are in the foods we normally consume.Excitotoxicity is a pathological process where glutamic and aspartic acid cause an over-activation of your nerve cell receptors, which can lead to calcium-induced nerve and brain injury. These two amino acids may contribute to neurodegenerative conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Alzhemier’s, Huntington’s disease, and other nervous system disorders such as epilepsy, ADD/ADHD and migraines.[15]Aspartic acid...can be synthesized from oxaloacetate and glutamate via transamination... free amino acids act differently than those occurring in whole foods. ... Digestion breaks most proteins into amino acids only at a very slow rate. I quote Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology, page 794, "As a result the normal rate of absorption... (amino acid absorption is determined) by the rate at which they can be released from the proteins during digestion. For these reasons, essentially no free amino acids can be found in the intestine during digestion."[16]When soybeans are processed, the excitotoxic amino acids (glutamate and aspartate) are not only released, they are concentrated. This is especially so in soy protein isolates and soy protein concentrates, which are used in soy milk. This means that your figures on the glutamic and aspartic acid contents are much lower than in fact exist in your product.Olney and others have shown that human blood levels of glutamate increase as much as 20 times on glutamate-loading with concentrations found in such hydrolyzed proteins. These high blood levels are transferred into the human brain, especially under certain circumstances. Even in the completely normal brain, glutamate, asparate and other excitotoxins can enter the brain via the circumventricular organs, which includes the hypothalamus. As you certainly know, or should know, one of the most sensitive structures in the brain is the arcuate nucleus. It is easily destroyed by levels of glutamate found in hydrolyzed proteins and this has been proven in laboratory studies.It is also known that the blood-brain barrier contains glutamate receptors and that free glutamate at these concentrations can open the barrier, allowing these high levels of glutamate freely to enter the brain.It is also known that a multitude of conditions open the barrier, including strokes (both gross and silent), brain injury, brain tumors, certain pesticides, mercury, lead, autoimmune disorders (lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc), radiofrequency radiation (cell phones), seizures, multiple sclerosis and infections. Anyone with these conditions should avoid products that contain high levels of excitotoxins, such as hydrolyzed soy products. This constitutes a large percentage of the population.In addition, pregnant women should avoid such excitotoxin-containing products, since the placenta concentrates the glutamate, exposing the baby to much higher levels of glutamate than the mother. This has been proven. It has also been proven, that the baby's brain is 5 times more sensitive to excitotoxin exposure than is the adult brain and that humans are 4 times more sensitive than the next most sensitive animal species. And this is under the best of conditions.study reported in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition in the year 2000. It describes a 25-year study of middle-aged individuals consuming a diet containing tofu, which found a strong association with brain atrophy and cognitive impairment and the consumption of this soy product. Brain atrophy was determined by MRI scans. In fact, low brain weight was seen in 12 percent of men consuming the lowest amount of tofu and 40 percent consuming the highest amount. This indicates a dose-response effect, making a stronger case of neurotoxicity.[16]ObesityBecause soy floods the body with glutamate, this can contribute to obesity:newborn animals fed glutamate developed gross obesity. This has been repeated numerous times and is used in obesity studies. An international panel of neuroscientists cited this as a possible reason for the obesity epidemic in the developed world. With the dramatic increase in glutamate food additives and consumption of soy products, especially soy-based formula and soy milk by babies and small children, it is no wonder we are seeing this epidemic of childhood gross obesity and diabetes.[16]Cardiovascular problemsBecause soy floods the body with glutamate, this can contribute to cardiovascular problemsExperiments have also shown that early exposure to glutamate can alter-permanently-the baby's vascular reactivity. This would have major implications in cardiovascular disease. Likewise, early exposure to higher levels of glutamate, equal to that of food-based excitotoxins, results in behavioral problems, endocrine disruption, increased susceptibility to seizures early in life and alterations in lipid profiles that increase the likelihood of cardiovascular disease later in life. In fact, newer studies have shown that elevated blood glutamate significantly increases free radical generation in the endothelial lining of blood vessels-the very mechanism that causes atherosclerosis.[16]Upset stomach, bad skin, asthma, and more…consuming upwards of 100 grams of soy each day started to have deleterious effects on the men. They suffered from myriad gastrointestinal, cognitive, emotional and endocrine distress and other symptoms of consumption of toxic levels of soy. In 2008, prisoners began contacting the Weston A. Price Foundation – a not-for-profit that champions real food – detailing serious health effects of the soy-centered diet. They suffered from diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, heart palpitations, acne, insomnia, anxiety, depression and symptoms of hypothyroidism.[1]Some additional problems may be linked to the flood of glutamate that comes with eating soy products:Recent research has also shown that many tissues and organs in the body contain glutamate receptors and that overstimulation of these receptors can cause a number of clinical problems. For example, glutamate receptor stimulation of pulmonary tissues can result in bronchiospasm (as in asthma) and worsening of pulmonary function in those with lung diseases. The heart muscle and heart conduction system (AV and SA nodes) also contain numerous glutamate receptors. As I pointed out, the pancreas (ilets of Langerhans) also contains abundant glutamate receptors, and explains the resulting diabetes.Even more frightening is the recent discovery that glutamate greatly enhances the growth of a number of cancers, especially brain cancers such as the glioblastoma and malignant astrocytoma. Breast, lung and ovarian cancers have also been shown to spread and metastasize faster when glutamate levels are elevated. This has been proven and is beyond dispute.[16]Here is just a sampling of the health effects that have been linked to soy consumption: Breast cancer Brain damage Infant abnormalitiesKidney stones Immune system impairment Danger during pregnancy and nursing Soy foods contain anti-nutritional factors such as saponins, soyatoxin, phytates, protease inhibitors, oxalates, Soy contains goitrogens Goitrogens are substances that block the synthesis of thyroid hormones and interfere with iodine metabolism, thereby interfering with your thyroid function. Drinking even two glasses of soymilk daily for one month provides enough of these compounds to alter your menstrual cycle. Although the FDA regulates estrogen-containing products, no warnings exist on soy. Soy has toxic levels of aluminum and manganese - Soybeans are processed (by acid washing) in aluminum tanks, which can leach high levels of aluminum into the final soy product. Soy formula has up to 80 times higher manganese than is found in human breast milk. [8]Toxic hexane can be used in processing soy and can be consumed by those who eat soyHexane is a neurotoxin that is also a petroleum byproduct of gasoline refining. It is listed as a hazardous air pollutant with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ... The US Food and Drug Administration does not set a maximum residue level for hexane in soy food and does not require food manufacturers to test for hexane residues in their products. However, they do impose a limit of 5 parts per million (ppm) in fish protein isolate and a limit of 25 ppm in hop extract and spice resins. The investigation found 21 ppm in soy meal and more recent research has found amounts of up to 50 ppm. [2]Hexane residues of 21ppm were discovered in soy meal commonly used to produce soy protein for infant formula, protein bars and vegetarian food products. These laboratory results appear to indicate that consumers who purchase common soy products might be exposing themselves (and their children) to residues of the toxic chemical HEXANE — a neurotoxic substance produced as a byproduct of gasoline refining.[12]Here’s what the EPA has to say about hexane.Hexane is used to extract edible oils from seeds and vegetables, as a special-use solvent, and as a cleaning agent. Acute (short-term) inhalation exposure of humans to high levels of hexane causes mild central nervous system (CNS) effects, including dizziness, giddiness, slight nausea, and headache. Chronic (long-term) exposure to hexane in air is associated with polyneuropathy in humans, with numbness in the extremities, muscular weakness, blurred vision, headache, and fatigue observed. Neurotoxic effects have also been exhibited in rats. No information is available on the carcinogenic effects of hexane in humans or animals. EPA has classified hexane as a Group D, not classifiable as to human carcinogenicity.[13]We just don’t know enough about hexane. We blithely consume chemicals without understanding the postential risks. What’s more insidious is that cattle eat soy products and so the cattle eat the hexane and then we eat the beef, getting more hexane. We just don’t seem to care enough about our food supply, but that's another issue.Some claim that denizens of Asian countries love soy, but Asians consumption of soy is lower than is generally understood :contrary to what the industry may claim soy has never been a staple in Asia. A study of the history of soy use in Asia shows that the poor used it during times of extreme food shortage, and only then the soybeans were carefully prepared (e.g. by lengthy fermentation) to destroy the soy toxins. Yes, the Asians understood soy all right!Perhaps the best survey of what types/quantities of soy eaten in Asia comes from data from a validated, semi quantitative food frequency questionnaire that surveyed 1242 men and 3596 women who participated in an annual health check-up program in Takayama City, Japan. This survey identified that the soy products consumed were tofu (plain, fried, deep-fried, or dried), miso, fermented soybeans, soymilk, and boiled soybeans. The estimated amount of soy protein consumed from these sources was 8.00 ± 4.95 g/day for men and 6.88 ± 4.06 g/day for women (Nagata C, Takatsuka N, Kurisu Y, Shimizu H; J Nutr 1998, 128:209-13). [10]A meta-analysis of soy consumption backs this up:In total, 24 surveys from 4 countries that met the inclusion criteria were identified: Japan (n = 11), China (n = 7), Hong Kong (n = 4), and Singapore (n = 2). The results indicate that older Japanese adults consume approximately 6-11 g of soy protein and 25-50 mg of isoflavones (expressed as aglycone equivalents) per day. Intake in Hong Kong and Singapore is lower than in Japan, whereas significant regional intake differences exist for China. Evidence suggests that < or =10% of the Asian population consumes as much as 25 g of soy protein or 100 mg of isoflavones per day.[33]Some research from the soy industry further bolsters this ideaThe soy industry's own figures show that soy consumption in China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan ranges from 9.3 to 36 grams per day.[34]To put those numbers into perspective, 1/2 cup of tofu (126 grams) has about 10 grams of soy protein.[35] That would be less than 5% of calories in a typical 2000 calorie per day diet.So if Asians don’t each much soy, it may not be responsible for their good health. Asian good health may instead be due to increased seafood and vegetable consumption. It’s likely the case that Asians don’t hurt themselves up with too much soy, because their consumption is low on average.Some research seems to suggest that it was consumed in isolated locations around 1000 BC. It didn't meet widespread adoption until after that. Humans have been consuming soy for a shorter amount of time than they've been consuming things like wheat and cow's milk.Genetic ModificationIt's worth noting that 93% of soy products are genetically modified.[24] That presents issues of its own as the soy we consume today may be different in some ways than soy that has been consumed historically in Asia.Overall:Some say soy is not as bad for your heart as whole milk is (that may be true). It’s not as bad for your heart as meat from cows that were stuffed with corn, grains and other foods those cows weren’t meant to eat. That may be true as well. However, that doesn’t make soy an ideal food choice - and it doesn’t remove the other problems associated with soy. Soy is not the only protein source, and comparing it to other, less desirable protein sources does not make it a great choice.Many enjoy the taste of soy, and it offers some nutritional benefits, but that does not mean that consuming it in excess is an ideal choice for health.This answer is a work in progress. I've read a lot on soy, and I plan to add to this answer whenever I come across more information, adding both more information, more studies and more sources.[1] http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/soy.htm[2] http://www.rd411.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1450:hexane-in-soy-products-a-need-for-concern&catid=97:healthful-eating&Itemid=391[3] http://foodnhealth.tumblr.com/post/4808130054/soy-is-not-a-health-food-the-link-to-digestive (this is actually my post)[4] http://www.greenpasture.org/utility/showArticle/index.cfm?objectID=7241[5] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/22/jeffrey-smith-interview-april-24.aspx[6] http://www.responsibletechnology.org/blog/18[7] http://nourishedkitchen.com/illinois-prisoners-soy-diet/[8] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/18/soy-can-damage-your-health.aspx?aid=CD12[9] http://chetday.com/soy.html[10] http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/soy/1086/[11] http://joe.endocrinology-journals.org/content/170/3/591.abstract[12] http://www.naturalnews.com/026303.html[13] http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/hexane.html[14] http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1993-35822-001 via http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/early-life-soy-exposure-was-associated-masculinized-play-behavior-girls-42-months-age[15] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/04/can-eating-this-common-grain-cause-psychiatric-problems.aspx[16] http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/220405/CTM%20-%20Soy%20rebuttal.htm[17] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630504/[18] http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(09)00966-2/abstract[19] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630504/[20] http://www.livestrong.com/article/466960-does-soy-affect-your-hormones/[21] http://www.livestrong.com/article/474660-soy-and-hormonal-imbalance/[22] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soybean-fertility-hormone-isoflavones-genistein[23] http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/news/20080723/soy-foods-sperm-concentration-link[24] National Agricultural Statistics Board annual report, June 30, 2010. Retrieved July 23, 2010 via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#cite_note-56[25] http://mcpharmacol.com/index.php/Journals/article/viewFile/106/105[26] http://thyroid.about.com/cs/soyinfo/a/soy.htm[27] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14709499?ordinalpos=35&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum[28] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12060828?ordinalpos=44&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum[29] http://www.jacn.org/content/9/2/164.abstract?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=soy+infant+autoimmune&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT[30] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18624607?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum[31] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16475902?ordinalpos=20&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum[32] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16571087?ordinalpos=19&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum[33] Estimated Asian adult soy protein and isoflavone... [Nutr Cancer. 2006][34] Traditional soyfoods: processing and products. and Traditional soyfoods: processing and products and http://jn.nutrition.org/content/125/3_Suppl/570S.full.pdf[35] Tofu, firm, prepared with calcium sulfate and magnesium chloride (nigari)