Wearing A Bra Has No Link With Breast Cancer

I had no idea that the media had always carried the news that wearing
a bra could increase the risk of cancer. Well I'm glad I had no idea
about that...

Now scientists have come out to with contrary reports:

'To determine if concerns that have surfaced in the past over whether
wearing bras might increase the chances of tumors, the researchers
looked at types of bras women wore, when they began wearing them and
how long they wore them each day.

"We found no evidence that wearing a bra is associated with breast
cancer," said study author Lu Chen, a researcher at the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. She's also a doctoral
student in epidemiology at the University of Washington School of
Public Health.

Chen decided to look at the issue because media reports have suggested
that bras may hamper lymph circulation and drainage and interfere with
waste removal, thereby boosting breast cancer risk. In a book
published in 2005, the authors claimed to have evidence of a link
between bras and breast cancer risk. And there are concerns that
breast cancer may be more prevalent in developed countries, where
women are more likely to wear bras, she said.

But the topic has rarely been studied scientifically, Chen noted.

The new research, funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, is
published Sept. 5 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers &
Prevention.

Chen's team evaluated more than 1,000 women who had been diagnosed
with breast cancer between 2000 and 2004, comparing them to 469 women
without breast cancer.

All of the study participants were past menopause, ranging in age from
55 to 74. Those with breast cancer had one of two common types --
invasive lobular cancer or invasive ductal cancer.

The researchers gathered information about bra cup size, whether the
bras they wore had underwires, how long each day they wore them and
when they started wearing a bra. Women also told the researchers about
any family history of breast cancer, their height and weight,
education level, race, income, whether they used hormone replacement
therapy and whether they had had a recent mammogram.

The bra-wearing habits were not linked with breast cancer risk, Chen found.

"Our study found no evidence that wearing a bra increases a woman's
risk for breast cancer," she said. "The risk was similar no matter how
many hours per day women wore a bra, whether they wore a bra with an
underwire, or at what age they first began wearing a bra."

The new study is solid, said Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, a professor
of cancer prevention at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

"This study tells the obvious, the logical, that it is safe to wear a
bra," he said.

When another Internet scare story crops up about bras and breast
cancer risk, women would be wise to ignore it, he added.

"The Internet is a treasure, but it contains plenty of nonsense,"
Trichopoulos said. "Women have enough to worry about without having to
worry about wearing a bra [or not]."

More information

To learn more about risk factors for breast cancer, visit the American
Cancer Society.'

(SOURCES: Lu Chen, M.P.H., researcher, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center, and doctoral student, epidemiology, University of Washington
School of Public Health, Seattle; Dimitrios Trichopoulos, M.D.,
Vincent L. Gregory professor of cancer prevention and professor,
epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston; Sept. 5, 2014,
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention)

Source: Health Day News