Near Death Experience Compels Woman to Investigate Soy Foods

Dianne Gregg lay in the hospital after what she thought was a heart attack. The nurse gave her something to drink and left the room. Dianne’s blood pressure plummented and she went into anaphalactic shock. If her husband had not been there to call the nurses, she would have died.

Dianne spent 4 days in intensive care, and the doctors told her she was poisoned. Food poisoned. It wasn’t until two weeks later, when she had a soy protein drink that she discovered the culprit. She had the same symptoms that preceded her stay in the hospital, weakness, anxiety, nausea. Her husband did some internet research on soy allergy.  Dianne was a classic case. All the symptoms were identical to what she was experiencing. Weight gain, bloating, heart palpitations, nausea, faintness.After avoiding soy for a few weeks, she was symptom free.

Ad Campaigns Boast Health Claims, What’s Needed are Side Affect & Allergy Warnings

The soy industry has spent millions promoting soy as a health food. Dianne, like many Americans, bought the hype. The disclaimer that soy is a leading allergen, comparable to peanuts, wheat, eggs is missing from soy food ads. It shouldn’t be. Dianne’s near death experience is a cautionary tale. That is what drove her to do extensive research, so that she could get the message out to the American consumer. There are hidden dangers and huge risks to using soy as the mainstay of your diet.

Book Benefits from a Groundbreaking Soy Industry Expose

Kaayla Daniel, Board member of Weston A. Price Foundation, an international nutrition education non-profit, devoted years of her life doing the same sort of research. As a nutritionist, she encountered many such cases of soy intolerance. Patients presented with a constellation of weird symptoms. Kaayla was able to determine that the one common denominator was a high soy diet. Her years of research included infiltrating soy industry conferences and delving into the scientific literature. She also collected a large of case histories and researched the FDA toxic plants database. Her book, The Whole Soy Story–The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food inspired the Soy Alert! campaign of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

This campaign is one of the resources available to Dianne, when she was looking for answers and trying to unravel the mystery of why eating a supposed health food nearly took her life.

Lost in the Hype, Little Known Dangers of Soy

As Dianne learned, soy can cause problems for anyone, even those not allergic to it. Soy has anti-nutrients that block absorption of important minerals. It is high in plant estrogens, yet blocks estrogen receptors. It is a goitergen, meaning it is hard on the thyroid.

From reading the section on What the Soy Industry Tells You, it is clear that much of the soy marketing is designed to capitalize on the lipid hypothesis, which has the public scared of fat and dietary cholesterol. Much of the research cited in press releases and industry advertising is weak and has many detractors. I am afraid until the cholesterol lowering craze is over, health conscious Americans will continue will continue to fall prey to predatory health claims such as these.

For instance, high protein, low fat foods are highly prized by consumers who are trying to avoid saturated fats and cholesterol. Demonization of animal fats, has led to the vegetarian craze, and soy protein is pitched to vegans and vegetarians as an animal free protein source.

Even Medical Professionals Have Been Snowed by Soy

Chances are, that nurse in the hospital gave Dianne an soy based protein drink. This same drink was prescribed to a cancer patient I know, as a nutritional supplement. According to Dianne’s reasearch, soy actually promotes tumor growth in cancer survivors and many oncologists put it on the AVOID list for their patients. Yet, according to Dianne, hospital food is riddled with soy. A hidden danger, right in a health care center.

Food Buyers BEWARE, Soy is EVERYWHERE

Another interesting fact I learned from Dianne’s fascinating book, that over 60% of the commercially available food has some form of soy, whether it be soy oil (most vegetable oils are actually soy oil, shouldn’t they be called bean oils??), soy flour, soy protein, or soy lethicin. soy is a cheap filler.

Dianne and others who are allergic to soy, and know it, have to be hyper vigilant. Dianne describes the rigors of vetting restaurant foods, and still taking her allergy pills ahead of dining out as a precaution. She cautions shoppers to read labels, each and every time, even for familiar products, because food manufacturers often change their ingredients without warning.

I highly recommend reading this book. Compared to Kaayla’s book, which is like the Merck Manual of Soy Dangers, Dianne’s book is the Cliff Notes, highly practical, written for the layperson, and minces no words.

With this book you can easily arm yourself with the truth, and find practical ways to live soy free.

Your Mission? To Share With Others These Hidden Dangers

Please, share Dianne’s story with others. Tweet and Facebook this post like crazy. Tell every doctor and nurse you know. You may save someone’s life. Or, at the very least, you’ll be equipped to stock your larder with soy free foods so that you can personally avoid the health risks.

From my reading of Dianne’s story, her soy allergy was developed by the health risks associated with high soy consumption. She tolerated soy just fine for a long time and then, BOOM. It was toxic to her.

On this blog, Hartke is Online! this coming Friday, is another soy horror story, Bobbie, a woman from Ohio who had devastating health consequences such as rapid hair loss, from the interaction between high dose birth control and the phyto-estrogens in soy. Every hairdresser needs to hear this story, they may be able to save a lot of women a lot of misery.

To learn more about the new book, please visit the author’s website:

The Hidden Dangers of Soy

More on The Science and Food Politics of Soy

The Weston A. Price Foundation, 2 years ago, filed a petition to the FDA to remove heart health claims from soy products, which have never been given GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status by the FDA.  GRAS status is a prerequisite for obtaining a health claim. The FDA has yet to act on the petition.

Currently, the Foundation is pursuing a lawsuit on behalf of Illinois prisoners, who are receiving toxic and life threatening amounts of soy in their rations. They are being fed upwards of 100 grams daily, 4 times the amount the official FDA position recommends. See more information about the soy prison legal case in the Weston A. Price press room.