Bras & Anti-perspirants
For alerting us to the bra hazard we have a couple of medical anthropologists, Sydney Singer and Soma Grismaijer to thank. Their book, Dressed to Kill – The Link Between Breast Cancer & Bras, was published by Avery in New York in 1995 and quickly buried by the media. So successful were the media in ignoring it that lost down here somewhere off the shores of Antarctica with the Internet still in its infancy I didn't even hear mention of it till over a year later. The book is the result of the Bra and Breast Cancer Study (BBC) designed to examine the history, attitudes and behaviours of women with and without breast cancer in five major cities across the United States.
From 1991 to 1993 Singer and Grismaijer interviewed over 4,700 women, a huge sample which gave some possibility of a representative result for women in general. What they found was that of the 2,056 women in the cancer group, 99 percent said they had worn their bras twelve hour or more per day. In the standard group, composed of women that were medically free of breast cancer at the time of the study, 20 percent wore their bras for less than twelve hours daily. The authors, after analysing the various figures for their two groups one way and another, finally calculated: "By wearing a bra for more than twelve hours daily, but not to sleep, a woman increases her chances of developing breast cancer by 11 percent, compared with the general standard population." (6)
The finding which rivets home the bra-wearing connection with breast cancer, however, is their discovery that "Women who wear their bras all the time have a 113-fold increase in breast cancer incidence when compared with women who wear their bras less than twelve hours daily!" (7)
Furthermore, if you happen to be one of those ex-hippie chicks who threw away their bras in the liberating 60s or else an irate woman's libber who saw the advertising industry hype in Elle-type sign hoardings and burned hers, you should note that practically none of the women in the BBC study's breast cancer group went bra-less, while in the standard group, who at the time of study were cancer free, 5 percent wore no bra at all. Singer and Grismaijer thus calculated that going bra-less is associated with a 21-fold reduction in breast cancer incidence. (8)
Two leading British surgeons, Professor Robert Mansel of the University Hospital of Wales and breast specialist, Simon Cawthorn of Frenchay Hospital, Bristol have lately backed up the Singer and Grismaijer study following their six month study of 100 women who were required to go without a bra for three months and then wear one again for three months, recording their levels of pain and cysts. Their study results suggest that pre-menopausal women who wear a bra are more likely to suffer breast pain and possibly even develop breast cancer. (9)
The single biggest argument in favour of a bra-less state, of course, is the fact that breast cancer is a unique feature in only those countries like our own where the wearing of bras is considered essential by our culture. It's interesting to note in this respect that power-dressing alpha women competing on the corporate ladder come out high on breast cancer statistics, although a childless state (breast-feeding reduces breast cancer incidence) and emotional stress undoubtedly contribute here.
Similarly women in 3rd World village cultures where bras are normally not worn, cosmetics and toiletries are too expensive, and diets follow simple, traditional lines, have very low rates of breast cancer unless they are also exposed to agricultural pesticides. Their sisters who move from the village environment into bra-wearing professional employment immediately increase their breast cancer risk, however. Obviously bra-wearing in this context becomes merely symbolic of a series of behaviour changes which take place when women become more affluent and start following the recommendations of the fashion industry and women’s magazines where the largely male-centred objectives of Big Business prevail.
Lest you be inclined to think that Singer and Grismaijer and the British team are oddities, it is interesting to note that a search of the medical literature brings up over 40 studies offering evidence in support of the two Americans' conclusions, some of it significantly pre-dating the BBC study. In other words, important evidence backing up the Singer and Grismaijer contentions has been around for some time, but ignored.
Di Morrow (Email: <breastcancer@selfstudycenter.org>, Website: <www.selfstudycenter.org> - the Singer and Grismaijer website), an Australian woman carrying out the Australian Bra Impact Study, four years ago called for more women volunteers to go bra-less in order to build up further evidence in support of the Singer and Grismaijer discovery. She noted in an Internet posting (March 2002): "When you make the simple choice to test this theory by going bra free for six weeks to two months (and we hope forever), you will begin by feeling different. First you may notice a little discomfort as your breasts adjust to being normal. Your breasts adjust quickly and soon feel comfortable. Eventually, with no pain or discomfort to draw your attention to your breasts, they become just a comfortable and unnoticed part of you like any other healthy organ."
The major line of inquiry is the bra's obvious role in restricting natural breast movement which would effectively massage the breast's lymphatic system and thus help move accumulating toxins, including pesticide residues, etc, away from the breast area. The assumption is that helped by the restrictive effect of the bra, toxins absorbed from the daily diet and general environment build up in areas of lymphatic congestion where they promote cyst development and eventually the creation of tumours.
Needless to say, regular exercise helps in this area of discussion. A study by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (September 28, 2002) in Orlando, Florida noted that "Even moderate physical activity - for example brisk walking for at least 2 miles three times a week - over the course of a lifetime can reduce a young woman's risk of developing breast cancer by 33%, and the risk of breast cancer after menopause by 26%". (11) The benefits of aerobic breathing and the lowering of insulin levels are obvious additional advantages from exercise, but it is the sweating and lymphatic drainage stimulated by energetic movement which are probably more important.
Sweating in itself has always been acknowledged for its importance in getting rid of body toxins and in an article I researched in the early 1980s about a group of New Zealand firemen, poisoned by the ingestion of poisonous paraquat, 2,4-D herbicide and dioxin fumes during a chemical industry fire, I noted that induced sweating was a significant factor in detoxification of the men concerned. The firemen in this particular case had also been injected with a Vitamin C solution and placed in a hyperbaric chamber breathing oxygen, but so contaminated was their underwear by the toxins sweated out during their series of hour-long treatments by Auckland doctor Matt Tizard (Email: <mhtizard@xtra.co.nz>) that it had to be discarded. This points to an obvious advantage in the use of a similar therapeutic approach - i.e. use of a hyperbaric chamber with Vit C, oxygen and sweating - as part of a cancer therapy, particularly where chemical toxins are a suspected factor.
Sweating can obviously be induced in a number of ways including saunas and hot baths and artificial heating of tumour areas via microwave energy, etc has been experimented with widely in alternative cancer therapy clinics here and overseas, but it is the deliberate blocking of a healthy sweating mechanism by the use of chemical anti-perspirants which needs raising at this point.
Use of under-arm deodorants and anti-perspirants, which not only block the lymphatic system and prevent healthy sweating, but which, as Drs Samuel Epstein & David Steinman indicate in their text, The Breast Cancer Prevention Program, (10) actually contain harmful chemicals which are themselves cancer-causing, only further increases the chance of breast cancer occurring in an otherwise healthy woman.
As Katrina Scott of the University of Maryland (Box 295, College Park, MD 20741-0295, USA) points out in a recent women's health posting on the Internet, " The human body has a few areas that it uses to purge toxins from the body --behind the knees, behind the ears, the groin area, and armpits. The toxins are purged in the form of perspiration. An anti-perspirant, as the name clearly indicates, prevents you from perspiring, thereby inhibiting the body from purging toxins from below the armpits. These toxins do not just magically disappear. Instead, the body deposits them in the lymph nodes below the arms since it cannot sweat them out.
"Nearly all breast cancer tumours occur in the upper outside quadrant of the breast area. This is precisely where the lymph nodes are located."
Unfortunately little of the information we have detailed seems to arrive in the conventional media. Where it does it is usually misquoted, misconstrued and otherwise mauled by lickspittle journalists more loyal to the codes of media owners than to any elementary examination of the actual truth about breast cancer causation. They have no excuse; the sources listed in this story are but a fraction of the hard information on what REALLY causes breast cancer and how to prevent it listed on the Internet (And let’s stop slagging the Internet because of its lunatic fringe – obviously the same constraints as to intelligent use apply as they do in a public library!), in professional journals and published texts worldwide. We’re talking about an issue of vital international concern after all, not the trivia of the celebrity circuit and the usual vacuous nonsense that otherwise dominates our media’s narrow attention span.
There are those, however, who are not entirely deserving of this criticism. Vivienne Parry in a story headed “Something to sweat about?” in the July 10, 2004 issue of the Melbourne Age “Good Weekend” magazine, while coming to the facile conclusion unsupported by both her arguments and her evidence that “The problem is the evidence that underarm products cause breast cancer is simply not there” does raise one or two points outside her otherwise cosmetic/toiletry industry-serving piece. In particular she raises a point remarked on by a Dr Stephen Antczak, co-author of text, Cosmetics Unmasked, regarding the role of underarm products as a causative factor in breast cancer “They are widely used in both Japan and America, yet the Japanese have low rates of breast cancer.” Antczak and Parry agree that because America has high rates of breast cancer then underarm products cannot be the cause, which is precisely the same “All bishops wear black hats: I wear a black hat, therefore I am a bishop” line of argument that Parry condemns earlier in her story attacking the antiperspirant argument.
Obviously true intellect and a genuine open-mindedness has to be applied to ALL aspects of possible breast cancer causation. Longevity studies give us a clue to what is probably the key factor in any differences which occur between Japan and America. Japanese populations are world leaders in reaching the age of 100 plus. Americans not only live considerably shorter lives on average, but also suffer very high cancer rates. According to recent evidence a key to longevity, general good health and freedom from cancer is the correct ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 oils in the daily diet. The ratio SHOULD BE 1:1.
The Role of Omega fatty-acids »
6. Sydney Singer & Soma Grismaijer, Dressed to Kill – The Link Between Breast Cancer & Bras, Avery, New York, 1995, page 125.
7. Ibid, page 126.
8. Ibid, page 126.
9. The NZ Charter Journal, July 2001, page 4.
10. Samuel S.Epstein & David Steinman, The Breast Cancer Prevention Program, Macmillan, USA, 1998.
11. Dr Mercola's Weekly Health Newsletter, #369, October 19th, 2002.