Written by: Rhonda Keagy, CCT2
2022
How is your relationship with your bra? Take this short quiz to reveal…
Do You
- Wear a bra every day, without question? If so, for how many hours each day?
- Wear a bra around the clock – even to bed?
- Peel off your bra as soon as you get home?
Does Your Bra
- Have padding for augmentation or concealment?
- Immobilize your breasts with no movement possible?
- Leave red marks on your body when you take it off?
What is Your Primary Reason for Wearing Your Bra
- For ease in nursing a child?
- To make sports activities and movement easier?
- To make your breasts more, or less, noticeable?
Below are some important statistical developments based on case studies[1] done regarding bras and their connection to breast cancer:
- Consider the chances of developing breast cancer based on how long each day you wear your bra:
o Rarely or Never: 1 in 168
o Less than 12 hours: 1 in 152
o More than 12 hours: 1 in 7
o Non-stop (and especially to bed): 3 in 4!!!
- Breasts are meant to be 2 degrees cooler than the temperature of the rest of the body. If you are wearing a padded bra you are increasing the temperature of your breasts by trapping heat. Increased heat in the breast can affect hormonal action - specifically estrogen. When estrogen activity is elevated, so is your risk of attracting cancer cells that can invite disease into the breast.
- If your bra leaves red marks on your body once you take it off, it is ill-fitting and either needs adjustment or you need a different size bra. Red marks indicate constriction that affects blood circulation to the breasts, chest and shoulders, again creating an invitation for disease to enter the breast.
- Bras can reduce the ability of your lymph system to provide proper drainage of toxins from the breast area. Over time the ever-presence of those toxins that are not eliminated can indeed cause breast cancer.
What to do to eliminate your risk of breast cancer where your bra is concerned
- Avoid underwires – They reduce lymph flow to the breasts
- Avoid padding so that heat is not trapped
- Consider a bra consult for a better fitting bra
- Try a loose-fitting camisole or thin crop top for concealment
- Pick a time of day to “rest” your breasts without your bra
- Never sleep in your bra!
- Consider adding lymph brushing to your daily regime
*For helpful tips on how to lymph brush or if you need suggestions on bra companies that offer supportive, non-underwire styles – even for large chested gals – please contact Insight Holistic Imaging at Insight-Holistic.com. Insight Holistic Imaging specializes in providing mobile screening services for thermography and elective ultrasound in the Mid Atlantic area.
Today we look back on the out-of-date fashion of corsets and the barbaric practice of bound feet and realize how ridiculously harmful they were to women’s health by disfigurement - corsets alone caused distorted spines and organ damage in many women who wore them! Consider now that developing studies, like this one, are showing that bras are also harmful as a women’s foundational garment that is negatively affecting breast health and creating breast cancers. It has become imperative that we take our own health into our own hands and not rely on the $6.5 billion (in 2014 and expected to be $59.15 billion by 2024[2]) lingerie industry to have our best interest - and health - at heart when developing these fashions. Do some research for yourself to see what is truly behind the continued popularity of the bra – it is not just fashion, and it is not to maintain the good health of your breasts.
Here's to your good health!
Reference ___________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Johnson MD, DO, NMD, Dr. Ben (2016) No Ma’am Ograms. Columbus, OH: Gatekeeper Press.
[2] Leaders in Retail. (April 2019). The Evolution of The Lingerie Industry And The Trends That Govern It Today. Retrieved from https://vue.ai/blog/leaders-in-retail/the-evolution-of-the-lingerie-industry-and-the-trends-that-govern-it-today
Additional Reading Consideration:
Singer, R. & Gismsijer, S. Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras