Carrigon - Yes, I've done my research into Asian soy consumption, and I stand by what I said. Anyway, while I appreciate that you have unusually severe reactions to soy and dairy, very much worthy of investigation and discussion, and that these are commonly problematic in a number of ways, your particular response remains unusual rather than the norm. If everyone was haemorrhaging from even a tiny serving of soy or dairy, they would no longer be on the market in any shape or form.
To be honest, I think it's a bad idea to try to reduce any nation's health stats to a single component of their diet. Lifestyles are immensely complicated, diets are immensely complicated, and many of the food industries do their best to ensure that the stats out there are skewed beyond belief - which is why all of this is controversial in the first place. Other obvious potential culprits in the American diet (and could we please not assume that everyone here is American, or even that most of the Americans are necessarily on a typical American diet or that other folks are eating a diet typical for the area they were raised in or live in - I'm English living in Scotland, and I am definitely not eating either a typical English diet or a Scottish diet, neither of which are anything to write home about) are high levels of animal foods, particularly with artificial hormones as you pointed out; high levels of processed foods; a great deal of salt, sugar and fat; and most importantly, too much of it. Exactly why it's happening is still disputed, it's a complicated issue with a multitude of contributing factors, but I don't think anyone is disputing that obesity levels in America are high and still rising.
Which has made me remember that there's a strong correlation between weight problems and disrupted periods/hormonal problems, and that weight problems are very common in people with ME. Could anyone comment on whether they've noticed a pattern there? I was talking to a friend of mine last night, who has severe ME and is in the process of losing weight. She's lost 4st (28lb), she has 7st left to go (49lb), and she mentioned that her periods are finally regular again, instead of being spaced several months apart. If your weight drops below or goes above a certain point, your periods are likely to become rare or even stop.
I don't think my periods are any more or less irregular than when my weight was different, but the PMDD did start at exactly the same time that I suddenly put on a lot of weight for no apparent reason, and I've been told by several doctors that they are probably linked, since oestrogen is stored in fat cells. I'm in the throes of finishing losing the weight, and dieting itself causes hormonal disruption (when you burn the fat cells, the oestrogen in there gets released and has a little party), so it's still too early for me to see how my hormones will settle down once I've been back at my usual weight for a while.