Singer Dressed To Kill

The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras
1. Auflage 1995
ISBN: 978-1-930858-06-0
Verlag: I.S.C.D. Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Do bras cause breast cancer? Singer and Grismaijer have collected striking evidence that bra-wearing may be a major causal factor for breast cancer. According to the results of their 1991-93 Bra and Breast Cancer Study, described in this book, women who wear tight-fitting bras 24 hours a day are 125 times more likely to have breast cancer than women who do not wear bras at all. Why would bras be linked to breast disease and cancer? It has to do with the effect of bras on breast circulation, specifically the effect of bras on the lymphatic system. It is the bloodstream's job to deliver fresh, oxygenated fluid to the tissues and to remove carbon dioxide. It is the lymphatic system's job to remove fluid, called lymph, from the tissue spaces, along with debris, viruses, cancer cells, bacteria, toxins, and other unwanted material. One important fact about the lymphatic system is that it is a passive drainage system. While the bloodstream delivers fluid under the pumping pressure of the heart, the lymphatic system has no pressure. Its flow is influenced by gravity, breathing, exercise and movement, and massage. And the slightest constriction or compression of the tissue can close the tiny lymphatic vessels down, inhibiting lymph flow and leading to fluid accumulation, cysts, pain, and tenderness. This fluid congestion within the tissue is called lymphedema. Women who have fibrocystic breast disease essentially have lymphedema of the breast. Its cause, we discovered, is the impairment of lymphatic flow by pressure from the bra. Bras are elastic garments that exert constant pressure on the breast tissue. Their purpose is to push the breasts into a more fashionable shape. Yet, this pressure can cut down on flow within the lymphatic system, reducing its ability to remove fluid and toxins from the breast tissue. The toxins that are within the breast tissue include some biochemical products of tissue edema, such as free radicals, which are known to cause cancer. In addition, there are also toxins in our air, food and water, including pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, and other products of our petrochemically polluted world. Many of these are known to cause cancer. We deliver these toxins to all our tissues each day through the bloodstream. It is the job of the lymphatics to remove these toxins. And it is this job that the bra inhibits by its compression and constriction of the breasts. This is how bras cause breast cancer. Cancer causing toxins are delivered to the breast tissue by the bloodstream, and are kept there by the bra. The toxins are the bullets. The bra holds them in place, pointed directly at the breasts. This explains why women have more cancer in the breast than elsewhere in their bodies. The breasts are the most clothing constricted of any organ. It also explains why women have more breast cancer than men, and why breast cancer is only a problem in cultures in which bras are worn. Where there are no bras, there is virtually no breast cancer. Our study in Dressed To Kill was conducted on approximately 4700 U.S. women, about half of whom had breast cancer. We asked these women about their past bra-wearing attitudes and habits. What we discovered was that the women in the cancer group had a history of wearing bras tighter and longer than did the non-cancer group. In fact, many women in the cancer group slept with their bras on. Almost none were bra-free. This differed greatly from the non-cancer group. When the results were analyzed, they revealed that women who wear bras over 12 hours daily have a dramatically increased risk of developing breast cancer compared to bra-free women. In fact, bra-free women have about the same chances of developing breast cancer as men have, and this is over 100 times less than that for women wearing bras 18-24 hours daily. When you consider that smoking increases the incidence of lung cancer 20-30 times, this makes the link between breast cancer and bras 4-5 times greater than the link between cigarettes and lung cancer! For the thousands of women who have tried ending the bra habit, the results are spectacular. Having bound their breasts since puberty, the feeling of breast freedom sometimes may seem strange at first. But within days, the breasts have their chance to drain of congestion and excess fluid. Tenderness ends. Menstrual breast pain may disappear altogether. Cysts vanish. It's like a miracle. Interestingly, some women have become so conditioned to wearing a bra that they feel uncomfortable without one. That is because their breasts have become reliant on the bra for support, causing the loss of function of the musculature and ligaments that normally support the breasts. In other words, bras cause the breasts to be weak and droop. There are many large breasted women of all ages who have firm, healthy, trouble-free breasts because they have never worn a bra. It will take a fashion revolution for women to free themselves from the bondage of bras. But that's what's needed of we are to end this breast cancer epidemic.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Singer, Sydney Ross

Leseproben

2

Making the Connection

Soma and I returned to the United States within a week of discovering her breast lump. Coming from almost the other side of the planet, we arrived home both emotionally and physically exhausted.

When Soma removed her clothes to take a much-needed shower, we both looked at her breast—the one that had come between ourselves and happiness. How different it is to see a breast as your enemy! How alienating to see part of your body become a threat to your own life!

I noticed that Soma’s breasts were both outlined by dark red lines, marking the areas around her breasts and over her shoulders. The lines had been left by her bra. Before I could say anything, Soma began to rub her reddened skin. She did this unconsciously, and I realized that she always did this after removing her bra. I felt the skin. There were distinct grooves. I suddenly recalled a conversation that had taken place between Soma and a Fijian woman.

Soma had been washing a couple of the bras she had brought along on the trip. Two of them were hanging on a line to dry when a local woman ambled over, interested in discovering what the bras were. We were on a remote island where Western fashions were rarely seen, so her question was sincere.

“It’s called a brassiere,” Soma explained.

“What are they for?” the woman asked.

Soma had to think before responding. How would you respond to such a question? Would you say, “They hold breasts up” to a woman who had no idea that breast shape was even an issue? Soma had never before thought of her bra as anything other than normal, appropriate clothing.

The question of why women wear bras was something we later had to research for ourselves. At the time, Soma answered, “I never thought about it before. I guess it’s just the custom.”

The woman had been perplexed. Taking the bra and feeling it, she asked, “Doesn’t it feel tight?”

Sometimes,” Soma answered. “But I suppose you get used to it.”

Soma had shared this conversation with me afterward. Now it echoed in my mind as something important.

I flashed on something I had learned in animal science, back in college. I was in a barn with a veterinarian who had demonstrated how a young bull can be castrated by tying off the testicles. You need simply wrap a band around the base of the scrotum between the testicles and the body. The band constricts the blood flow and starves the constricted tissue, which eventually shrivels up and withers away.

I started to construct a theory from these puzzle pieces. Red, grooved marks from a bra indicate constriction. Could the bra somehow be constricting breast tissue, reducing circulation and causing degeneration? Could this somehow be a trigger for cancer?

I shared my ideas with Soma. She thought for a moment, and then her face lit with excitement. “I have a friend who got breast cancer at the age of thirty-six. She’s a little overweight, and I remember seeing indentations that her bra made even through her clothing. She’s always been really uncomfortable with her breasts, and likes to keep them snug inside a bra. She confided in me that she slept with her bra on, wearing it virtually twenty-four hours a day!”

Could this possibly be a lead? Could the wearing of bras have something to do with breast cancer?

VICTIMS OF FASHION

Clothing is something that none of us are born with, yet all of us learn to consider an extension of ourselves. This extension has both substantive psychological and physical implications. Clothing imparts a distinctive appearance to its wearer, indicating gender, social status, occupation, fashion consciousness, and sexuality. However, clothing does more than transform appearance. A snug-fitting garment becomes a type of shell, forcing the soft tissue inside to conform to certain shapes and dimensions.

But a human being is not a snail, which can live inside its shell, adjusting its anatomy to the contours of its covering. When we change our physical features with clothing, we change more than our appearance. We change the way our bodies work, resulting in many health problems.

For example, shoes are notorious for causing a host of health problems. Feet were not designed for enclosure in an airless, snug, stiff case. For one thing, this lack of air circulation and accumulation of perspiration leads to fungal infections, a common problem. Further, the foot is forced into conforming to the shape of the shoe, which it sometimes does not wish to do, leading to corns, distorted feet, and poor circulation. Women who wear shoes with narrow toes and high heels throw their entire bodies off balance, resulting in back problems and hip troubles—not to mention stunted hamstrings, bunions, hammertoes, and the hazards of a fall.

Underwear is another garment with known health risks. In men, fertility can be affected. The use of briefs has been implicated in male infertility because this type of underwear holds the testicles close to the body, not allowing them to cool properly. Testicles do not like to be overheated. Sperm need to be kept below body temperature to stay fully functional. In women, panties with nylon, rather than cotton, crotches have been associated with yeast infections. Nylon does not absorb perspiration and other secretions and does not circulate air as well as cotton, creating a warm, moist environment in which yeast can thrive.

Going back in time, corsets, popular from the seventeenth century until the early twentieth century, squeezed women to the point of serious internal damage and deformity. The corset did to the female body what tight shoes do to the feet. But the body cavity is filled with soft organs, not just muscles, tendons, and bone, as are feet. Consequently, the pressure on the body caused circulatory problems, breathing difficulty, and lower back distortion, as well as other health problems.

In 1986, the medical journal presented M. DeSilva’s article “The Costoclavicular Syndrome: A ‘New Cause.’” Researchers discovered that obese, heavy-breasted, middle-aged or elderly women were experiencing neck, shoulder, and arm pain as a direct result of compression on their shoulders by narrow brassiere straps. Some women developed permanent grooves in their shoulders from bra straps, with the compression leading to impairment of the nerves going down the arms and to the hands. These women also developed rounded shoulders due to the strain from their bra straps. This same syndrome was first described in soldiers with knapsacks who developed pain, numbness, and fatigability of the arms as they stood at attention.

In another study performed in Germany, shoulder straps of bras were shown to produce lesions on the shoulders of obese women with large breasts. Yet another study identified the bra straps worn by large-breasted women as the cause of tingling and nerve trouble of the little fingers. Written by G. Letterman and M. Schurter, the article about this study, which appeared in the in 1980, pointed out that large-breasted women resort to tight bras for support, leading to the above-mentioned problems. In fact, tight bras are known to do more than produce shoulder lesions and nerve problems. According to a 1980 article by N.K. Kochenour printed in tight bras have been shown to interfere with the new mother’s ability to produce milk.

There is clearly a history of clothing—specifically tight or intimately fitting clothing—negatively affecting health. Could there be a clothing connection with breast cancer? Put differently, could bras cause cancer in the breasts?

Bras have, of course, come to be considered a normal part of female fashion in the Western world. In the West, a young woman’s coming of age is associated with her first bra. It is a ritual of our time. Here we see the effect of cultural assumptions on a person’s world view. Some cultures have a ritual for menarche, a girl’s first menstrual period. In the United States, menarche is not an important cultural landmark, but developing breasts is considered a significant event.

Given this ritualistic passage in a woman’s life, it is no wonder that bras are not viewed as an unnatural cultural phenomenon that might have a negative impact on a woman’s breasts. Human breasts have developed over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years without constraint. It has been biologically impossible to adapt to bras in the short time since their invention. Women’s breasts were clearly not designed by nature to be shaped the way bras try to shape them. If breasts were so designed, women would not need bras to achieve that shape.

A PERSONAL DECISION

Before long, Soma stopped wearing her bra, just to be on the safe side. At first she felt strange and self-conscious without one, but within a couple of weeks she began to feel more comfortable than ever—despite the fact that one of her breasts had a lump. Removing her bra allowed Soma to experience her breasts in a way that bras did not permit. Without a bra artificially constraining them, her breasts felt freer and more natural. They felt the way your feet feel when you take off tight shoes.

Despite our initial terror at the discovery of the lump in Soma’s breast and our determination to get it diagnosed quickly, we now opted to postpone the diagnosis. The fear of breast cancer has been so emphasized by the media and the medical...