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Glynis' posts with tag: breastcancer
I read an interesting article today in On Fitness magazine about bras and breast cancer. The opening line was pretty compelling: "If 100 years ago, you went around announcing that smoking or sunlight causes cancer, you'd be laughed right out of the room - even by doctors."
The author interviewed Sydney Ross Singer, a medical anthropologist and director of the Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease in Hawaii. Singer says that bras restrict the lymphatic system and this constriction inhibits the ability of that system to remove toxins from the body. (The lymphatic system has no internal pressure and the tiny vessels are known to be easily compressed). Lymph blockage is known to cause some types of cancer.
Women tend to wear bras that don't fit right - if yours leaves red marks and indentations when you remove it, then you're constricting your lymphatic system in your breasts.
Singer and a team studied bras and breast cancer in 1991-1993, with over 4,700 US women participating in the study. Their results suggested that women who wear bras over 18 hours per day have 100 times greater risk of developing breast cancer than bra-free women. Where did they find the bra-free women to compare them to? Think National Geographic magazine! Aboriginals in Australia who have not been westernized, therefore do not wear bras, seem to have no problem with breast cancer. Maori women of New Zealand, who were completely westernized DID have the same high breast cancer rates as white New Zealand women. International statistics show that breast cancer is only a problem in cultures where there are bras.
Why isn't this being studied more? Apparently it is because the big pharmaceutical companies do a lot of the research funding - and there isn't money to be had in this. It's not developing a drug to line the pockets. What money is to be had in saying "don't wear your bra" even if it works? Many government funding sources are controlled by the drug companies as well (think lobbyists), and since studying whether something as simple as NOT wearing a bra can prevent breast cancer isn't a money-maker, no one is interested in funding that research.
I immediately thought of John Adams' daughter, Abigail, who died of breast cancer in 1813. Bras, as we know them, weren't invented yet - but here Nabby died of breast cancer. Well then, does this discount the bra theory? No - a small percentage of women (and even some men) do have a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. It appears that breast cancer did not become the epidemic that it is until the use of 20th century lingerie.
Singer says that it took 30 years for experts to believe in the smoking/lung cancer link and that we probably have another 18 years or so before they will accept the bra/breast cancer link.
Dr. Kerry Bennett, a breast cancer surgeon from Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston agrees that bras compress the lymphatic system and that toxins build up in the breasts, that the lack of blood or lymph flow can increase that build up. She recommends that women wear bras that fit properly, that we stop wearing underwires, that we only wear sports bras during a sport activity and that we have a bra-free time each day.
So do you burn your bra now... or do you, again, think of National Geographic and those saggy-boobed natives? This is one of those things were vanity might just get the best of us! Now, I'm sure a bit of that sag is because those bra-less women aren't doing chest presses, pec flys and pushups to hold the girls up - and they probably just don't have our western drive to keep them perky. I'm leaning toward the vain side - the thought of sagging, bagging and bouncing un-neatly just isn't super appealing. However, thinking back to Singer's research, it was the women who wore their bras 18 hours a day that had the greatest increase in risk.
If you want to help the fight against breast cancer, consider buying a T-shirt from Save the Tatas which gives a portion of their gross sales "to carefully researched cancer fighting organizations."
If you're not going to burn your bra, Champion is having their semi-annual sports bra sale. $19.99 - and they are GREAT. Coupon code XC18BB will get you free shipping.
~o~
Today's workout: 1 hour 32 minutes P90X yoga. It felt GREAT.
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