The Bra Breast Cancer Link
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As a thermographer, I have imaged thousands of women, and one of the most common things I find is lymphatic backup, which can be caused by wearing a bra.
Every time I see this, it provides a poignant reminder of the fact that wearing a bra can put your breasts at risk of breast disease and even breast cancer.
It’s these kinds of findings that make me even more grateful for the research of experts like Sydney Ross Singer.
Singer is a medical anthropologist who has studied the negative impact bras have had on our breasts, and he’s also co-author of Dressed To Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras.
His findings are crucial for women who want to take control of their breast health, and he was nice enough to let me publish another one of his articles, which you can read below:
Have you or someone you know been harmed by wearing bras?
If so, then you could become a co-plaintiff in a future class action lawsuit against the bra and cancer industries.
Product liability applies to garments, as well as other consumer products, and bras are known to cause health problems, including everything from headaches and back pain to nerve compression and tingling in the hands.
Bras have been shown to affect digestion, breathing, and even menstruation since they also interfere with the sympathetic nervous system.
Bras can also constrict the lymphatic system, which is the circulatory pathway of the immune system.
This causes reduced lymph and blood circulation, toxin accumulation, and reduced immune function, which can lead to breast pain, cysts, and even cancer.
The degree of damage that a bra can cause depends on the bra’s material, its toxic chemical content, how tightly it’s worn, the length of time it’s worn daily, and the number of years it has been worn.
According to the 1991-93 US Bra and Breast Cancer Study, documented in Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras, bra-free women have about the same risk of breast cancer as men, and the tighter and longer a bra is worn the higher the risk rises, to over 100 times higher for a 24/7 bra user compared to a bra-free woman.
Since that groundbreaking study, numerous other studies worldwide have confirmed a bra-cancer link.
The Lymph Connection
The lymphatic system consists of microscopic vessels that originate in the tissue space and lead to larger, but still tiny vessels that ultimately enter a lymph node. These nodes are bean-sized filters lined by white blood cells. This is the front line of the immune system.
Most of a breast’s lymph nodes are in the armpit. If the nodes detect a virus, cancer cell, or other foreign or hazardous substance in the tissue fluid, they begin an immune response by producing white blood cells to combat the problem.
Once through the lymph node, the fluid works its way through larger lymphatic vessels back to the heart and the bloodstream.
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, movement, and massage, and it is kept moving toward the lymph nodes by one-way valves.
The slightest constriction or compression of the tissue can close down the tiny lymphatic vessels, inhibiting lymph flow and leading to fluid accumulation, cysts, pain, and tenderness.
This fluid congestion within the tissue is called lymphedema.
Bras + Toxins = Cancer
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 toxins in our air, food, and water, including pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, plastics, and other products of our petrochemically polluted world. Many of these are known to cause cancer, and we deliver these toxins to all our tissues each day through the bloodstream.
It is the job of the lymphatic system to remove these toxins, but bras can inhibit this process by compressing and constricting 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, and the bra holds them in place, pointed directly at the breasts.
In addition, cancer cells that spontaneously develop in germ cells of the breast tissue cannot be properly removed from the breasts when the lymphatics are impaired. This means the body cannot effectively kill these seeds of cancer, allowing cancers to develop.
The breasts are the most clothing-constricted of any organ, and this explains why women have more cancer in the breast than anywhere else in their bodies.
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.
If you feel you have been harmed by wearing a bra, please reach out to Sydney Ross Singer at sydsinger@gmail.com.