Bras apparently do not add to the risk of breast cancer

Regularly wearing a brassiere does not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer after menopause, a new study finds.

Not found in the latest research: Compared with their bra-wearing sisters, aging women who avoid such structural support in hopes of reducing their breast cancer risk will experience greater stretching and sagging of the mammaries and more pronounced disappearance of the territory between waist and bust as they age.

The new study, in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, lifts the veil on a speculated link between bras and breast cancer: "Lay media," the authors write, have suggested that by impairing the free flow of lymphatic fluids, bras impede the removal of waste and toxin removal, that perennial bugaboo of health faddists and medical conspiracy theorists.

The speculated result of such a toxic buildup would be higher rates of breast cancer among women with a lifelong habit of sequestering their breast tissue in supportive underwear.

But in a study that compared the bra-wearing habits of 469 healthy post-menopausal women with those of more than 1,000 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, the authors found that "no aspect of bra-wearing" was positively linked to breast-cancer occurrence: not cup size, not preference for soft-cup vs. underwire, not the age at which bra-wearing was initiated or the duration of daily bra-wearing. The study was done at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

- Los Angeles Times