Topic: Bras & Link with BC?
Bras & Link with BC?
posted Sun, 17 Oct 2004 03:34PM
Debz
I mentioned in a previous message topic by Janeaway who was having a meeting with M&S that my surgeon and my oncologist had mentioned that after bc, mastectomy or recon that I should refrain from wearing underwired or bras that were restrictive bras as there is suficient evidence to show that wearing these types of bras, especially ill-fitting bras, causes pressure on the lymphatic system and nodes which are found to be just under the skin surface, where fatty tissue is also quite high. This pressure does not allow for the lymphatics to do their job properly by ridding the area of toxins, and can also reduce the rate at which toxins are removed, therefore toxins remain in the breast area for longer and can cause lumps and cysts to form (these when drained are found to contain lymph fluid - which has accumulated) and in worse case scenarios become bc.
Since this was first mentioned to me I have asked my Doctor and others what they believed to be contributing factors to the cause of bc ( I did not prompt with any suggestions), in the first instance they all said bras, and mentioned the possible increase in bc in much younger women in their 20's wearing wired, push up bras, secondly that their are medical concerns in relation to plasticides in particular meat being stored in vacumn packed plastic containers where meat absorbs the plasticides and also dairy due to the hormones injected into cows - still not sure about this as hormones are also injected into beef cattle and pigs. Maybe possible that all those that are vegans wear push-up bras?!!
Seemingly alot of the medical profession have similar concerns and theories relating to the above causing bc, but a bit like the tobacco industry, are reluctant to voice these concerns due to government concerns about the backlash if it were to say yes there is a link with bras/plasticides/hormones injected into cattle?!
I know I have previously worn bras which didn't fit quite as perfectly as they should, and had that feeling of relief when I have taken my bra off!! So who knows, yet more theories, perhaps bras, dairy and stored meat should have warnings like ciggie packets, stating use of may cause bc! Not sure how the male members of bc would view this theory! Be interested to hear!
I take the same view as I think a lot of you do, that there are lots of theories out there but it's about time more research was done in these areas to either prove or dispell the theories!
I am about to have bilateral recon, but think I will be a bit more picky as to what bras I wear after!
For those that are interested please read the following article, there are many others, plus it would be interesting for others to ask the question of their doctors/surgeons/ongologists to see what the general consensus is of the medical profssion elsewhere!
http://www.007b.com/bras_breast_cancer.php
Best Wishes
Debz
what strange doctors you have
posted Sun, 17 Oct 2004 04:25PM
Molennium
mole
The Bra that 'saved my life'?
posted Sun, 17 Oct 2004 06:06PM
cybergeeksis
I am a big girl. Too big - but that's another story. I had lost a lot of weight some time back and bought a whole new set of bras to accommodate my new size.
Then, slowly and inevitably, the weight crept back on. Still I stuffed myself into 36c bras which were under wired and too tight for me.
A couple of days before going down to Shrewsbury for a friends wedding, I had a last minute panic when I realised that I didn't have a suitable bra to wear with the only outfit which I currently owned which still fitted and was suitable for a wedding reception. I rushed out at lunchtime and nipped in to Primark where I grabbed a bra which looked the part and was a size up from my 'usual' so should obviously be big enough (?)
I almost had to ask my landlady for a shoehorn to get me into the damn thing and I also thought I was need some strong wax thread so that the fasteners could be sewn shut! At the end of the night I almost slipped the contraption off in the taxi going back to the hotel. I’ve never known such relief as I did that night, and it was with the greatest of pleasure that I fired my £2.00 purchase in the bin.
Two days later, I realised that the area where the bone in the side of the bra had been cutting into me was still sore. In the shower on that fateful Monday morning, I felt the extent of the injured area and thought I could feel a lump. I asked my husband to check it with me and he agreed – there was something there. I called my doctor’s surgery for an appointment and when I told them I had found a lump in my breast, they made an appointment for me that very afternoon. As my mum had died of cancer seven years earlier and my dad had a colostomy due to bowel cancer a couple of years after her death, I was fairly certain what the outcome would be. The doctor looked concerned and immediately said she would refer me to the breast clinic.
By the Friday of that same week I had an appointment for a mammogram and an appointment for the consultant just over a week hence. My expectations were fulfilled and the diagnosis was confirmed. The lump was around 3cm.
A lumpectomy followed and the pathology on the lump showed that the actual tumour was only 1.6 cm and the rest was made up of cells which had formed in reaction to either the tumour or some external force. Could it be that my £2.00 bra caused the reaction that made the tumour big enough to be detected? I guess I’ll never know….
So, theoretically an ill-fitting £2.00 Primark bra may have saved my life!
Karina
it doesn't add up
posted Sun, 17 Oct 2004 07:14PM
mejulie
It seems to me that the thing about bras is not whether they are underwired, push-up or whatever, but whether they actually fit. As it has been suggested that a staggering 70% of us wear the wrong sized bra, and on the assumption that the majority of those will be too small rather than too big - how come only 1 in 9 women get breast cancer (if that's the right figure!)?
Julia
PS just wondering why this is on the "younger women" section?
bra wearing
posted Sun, 17 Oct 2004 07:17PM
Molennium
I didn't wear a bra at all until I developed breast pain in 1997, by then the cancer must have been there. In fact I now think that cancer was the cause of the breast pain I had in the first place.
I intend to go back to wearing underwired jobbies once my scars have healed sufficiently.
No doctor of mine has ever suggested that bras were the cause of breast cancer, nor is this ever given as a risk factor in any medical book or of guidelines that I have read.
Mole
I dunno
posted Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:50AM
abbeyvet
There are a lot of people who would disagree with some of the stuff your docs say, its quite unusual for them to mention this sort of thing.
On one aspect I have quite a bit of knowledge - probably more than they do in fact as when I was a vet I worked quite a bit on the food safety end of things. Whatever research they are thinking of in regard to the hormones in meat really does not apply this side of the Atlantic. Use of hormones in both dairy and beef cattle is banned in the EU, and this band is VERY, VERY strictly enforced indeed. They used to be allowed years ago, but not for a long time and you can pretty much take it that unless you are buying your meat from extremely dodgy sources that it is hormone free.
This is NOT the case in the USA though, where larger doses of hormone than were ever permitted here are allowed and hormones are more or less universally used in both beef and dairy cattle, and indeed chicken also. So the research must have come from the USA. Whether it has any basis or not, I do not eat much if any beef or meat when in the USA, though it is hard to avoid, it's a very carnivorous place. I just don't like the idea of hormones in meat.
Whatever about BC, I have personally long wondered how much this use of hormones in beef has to do with the extreme obesity that is relatively common in the USA, where they eat an awful lot more beef than we do in any case.
On the bras, I am really doubtful too. I also don't think the bra industry lobby, if such existed, would be in anyway comparable to the tobacco industry lobby, so cannot imagine that such a connection would be somehow hushed up.
I have read about these sort of suggestions before, and others such as anti perspirants as a cause, but I have never seen a properly researched basis for any of them, just conjecture, anecdote and hearsay.
tight point
posted Mon, 18 Oct 2004 07:11PM
Janeway
surely if the restrictions caused by ill fitting bras where the basis for bc, then tumours would occur close to where the bras press down (i.e. around the margins of the lower half of the breast). But most (60%) of tumours are in the upper, outer quadrant (between the nipple and the shoulder) where the lymph can drain freely without going anywhere near the underwire or other bra pinch points (see the diagram of the lymph system around the breast in the breast health section).