Can Wearing A Bra Kill You?
by William Thomas

If you didn't burn yours in the 'Sixties', you might want to put it
away
now.
"Bras cause breast cancer. It's open and shut," says medical
researcher Syd Singer.

The Singers became breast cancer sleuths in 1991.
On the day Soma
discovered a lump in her breast,
the husband-wife team was studying
the effects of Western medicine on Fijians.

In the shower, Syd noticed
that Soma's shoulders and breasts were outlined by dark red grooves.

He remembered a puzzled Fijian woman asking his wife about her
brassiere: "Doesn't it feel tight?"

"You get used to it," Soma had replied.

Could bras be constricting breast tissue, Syd wondered,
hampering lymph drainage and causing degeneration?

Soma decided to stop wearing hers.

But when Syd searched the medical literature
he found no known causes of breast cancer,
which rarely appears before a woman's mid-thirties,
most often after 40.

The highest death rates from breast cancer are in North America and
northern Europe, with the developing world catching up fast.

The World Health Organization calls chemical toxins the primary cause
of cancer.

But poisons accumulating in breast tissue
are normally flushed by clear lymph fluid
into large clusters of lymph nodes
nestling in the armpits and upper chest.

The Singers found that
"because lymphatic vessels are very thin,
they are extremely sensitive to pressure and
are easily compressed."

Chronic minimal pressure on the breasts - can cause -
lymph valves and vessels to close.

"Less oxygen and fewer nutrients are delivered to the cells, while
waste products are not flushed away," the Singers noted.

After 15 or 20 years of "bra-constricted lymph drainage", cancer can
result.

Looking at other cultures, Soma and Syd were struck by
the - low incidence of breast cancer -
in poorer nations
awash in pesticides
dumped by northern nations.

They didn't find peasant women wearing "push-up bras".
Instead, they discovered that the Maoris of New Zealand
integrated into white culture
have the same rate of breast cancer,
while Australia's - marginalized aboriginals -
have virtually no breast cancer.

The same trend held for "Westernized"
Japanese, Fijians and other "bra-converted" cultures.

In "Dressed To Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras",

the researchers also observed that:
just before a woman begins her period,
- estrogen floods her system -,
causing her breasts to swell.
If she continues wearing the same bra size,
life-saving lymphatics -- will be even more tightly, squished.

Had they found the "estrogen link" to breast cancer?

Childless women never fully develop their breast-cleansing lymphatic
system.
Nor do women who have never breast-fed.

Working women who wear bras everyday and postpone having children
could be
at higher risk, the Singers warn.

Even worse, a young woman's coming of age is often "marked" by her
first bra.

Like the ancient Chinese practice of foot-binding, "breast-binding" at
puberty can eventually lead to severe medical complications.

Could bras be the "missing link" in a growing epidemic of breast
cancer?

Beginning in May, 1991,
Soma and Syd Singer's 30-month "Bra and Breast Cancer" study
interviewed some
4,000 women
in five major US cities.

All were Caucasian of
mostly "medium income" ranging in age from 30 to 79.

Half had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Almost all of the women interviewed were unhappy with the size or
shape
of their breasts.
Women who chose a bra for appearance,
ignoring soreness and swelling,
had - twice the rate of breast cancer - of those who did not.

But the most startling statistic was:

* that "three out four women who wore
their daytime bras to sleep contracted breast cancer".
* So did - one out seven women - strapped into a bra
more than 12 hours a day.

"Bra-free women" have just:
* a one in 168 chance of being diagnosed with breast
cancer, says Singer.
* The same as:
"bra-free men".

"Don't sleep in your bra!"
Syd Singer pleads.

"Women who want
to avoid breast cancer
should wear a bra for
the shortest period of time possible
- certainly for - less than - 12 hours daily."

Syd also, submits that
some 80% of bra-wearers who experience:
* lumps,
* cysts and
* tenderness
will see those symptoms vanish, "within a month of
getting rid of the bra."

Not everyone is ready to hang up her halter.
As one woman told the team, "My tits will sag all the way to my navel
without a bra."

But Surgeon Christine Haycock at the New Jersey College of Medicine
says that inherited traits - not ligaments or breast size - are the
reason
some breasts give in to gravity.
Bouncing bosoms help clear the lymphatics.

Well aware that their findings were "explosive,"
the Singers sent their survey results to the
heads of America's most prestigious cancer
organizations and institutes.

None responded.

Like the cancer business,
the bra business is huge.

Multiply how many worldwide women buy several $25 bras every year
and you end up with:
a multiple of the
$6 billion-a-year US bra business.



Syd Singer says that establishment censorship of the:

"bra-breast cancer connection"

is killing women.


Pointing to the - biggest commonality - among breast cancer patients,
he's emphatic that:
it's "bra-squeezed" lymphatics.


Going bra-less for all occasions,
Soma began dressing to de-emphasize her breasts.
She also began:
* regular breast massage and bicycle riding,
* vitamin and herbal supplementation, and
* drinking only purified water.
Two months later, her lump - disappeared.


At the first - frightening sign of a "lump",
an angry Syd Singer says,

"women should take their bras off
before they take their breasts off."

Why wait, when you can liberate your lymphatics now.

SIDE-BRA

IF YOU MUST WEAR A BRA

* Push-up and sports bras are out.
* Choose loose-fitting cotton bras.
* Make sure you can slip two fingers under
the shoulder-straps and side-panels.
* The higher the side-panels, the
more severe the restriction of major lymph nodes.
* Don't wear this disastrous device to sleep.
* Take it off at home.
* Massage your breasts every time you remove your bra.
* Sing your lymphatics into health - or at least breathe deeply."




- Namaste' - Bill Chilton