One of the known causes of cancer is radiation from x-ray machines. That’s why radiation doses for medical diagnostic x-rays have been lowered over the years. It’s bad medicine when a diagnostic tool used to detect cancer also creates cancer.
The problem is that x-rays are like bullets shooting through the body, causing tissue trauma and burns and breaking DNA strands. Repair of this DNA damage can be faulty, leading to cellular changes that result in tumor development and growth. There is no safe amount of x-rays for the human body, and the impact of radiation damage is cumulative, so it adds up with each radiation exposure.
Mammograms are x-rays of the breasts, where the breasts are smashed between two plates and irradiated with x-rays to look for tumors. Radiologists know these x-rays to the breast cause cancer, and have estimated that mammograms cause breast cancer at about a 0.2% rate, or about the mortality rate for the flu.
This means that each year a woman gets a mammogram she increases her chances of developing breast cancer from that mammogram. Out of every million women who get mammograms, 1000-2000 will develop cancer from the mammograms.
The risk is worse for women who have genetic mutations in their tumor suppressor genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA 2 genes, which lowers the body’s ability to repair radiation damage to DNA and thereby increases the chance of getting cancer from mammograms. Radiation damage needs to be cleaned up by these genes, helped along by a healthy immune system. Any impairment of the repair mechanism results in greater risk of developing breast cancer from mammograms.
As a result, women with a high risk of developing breast cancer due to defective BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes are advised to not get mammograms, opting instead for safer MRI imaging, which does not use x-rays. Ironically, the more likely a woman is to get breast cancer, the more harmful is the radiation from mammograms.
However, there is another cause of immune system dysfunction which increases breast cancer incidence. It has to do with wearing tight bras for long hours daily. Studies have shown that bra-free women have about the same risk of breast cancer as men, while the tighter and longer the 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.
How do bras increase breast cancer incidence?
Bras are designed to alter breast shape for fashion reasons, and this requires constant pressure being applied to the breasts to achieve that shape. This pressure constricts the thin, easily compressed lymphatic system within the breasts. The lymphatic system consists of a network of microscopic drainage tubes within the breast tissue. Lymph fluid drains from the breasts to the lymph nodes, most of which are in the arm pits. This pathway for fluid circulation in the breasts is essential for the immune system to cleanse away tissue debris from trauma and radiation damage, as well as to remove toxins, bacteria, and viruses from the tissue. If the lymphatic system becomes constricted by tight bras, the lymph fluid stagnates, as the breast tissue becomes increasingly toxic, causing a condition called lymph-stasis. Pain and cysts develop over time, and eventually this leads to cancer, since the immune system is hampered in attacking any developing cancer cells.
Keep in mind that cancer cells develop all the time in our bodies, as errors in DNA repair and replication are common. However, the immune system detects these defective cells and attacks them before they become a problem. The vast majority of developing cancer cells are killed by our immune system, so long as it is allowed to do its job. However, when we constrict the body with tight clothing, the compression of the lymphatics impairs this circulatory pathway of the immune system, resulting in decreased immune protection, just like having defective tumor suppressor genes.
The bra impairs immune function by constriction of the lymphatics. Any damage to the breasts, either by trauma, radiation, or exposure to carcinogenic chemicals or toxins, is made worse by bras, since the immune system cannot do its job when constricted and compressed by a bra. Blood flow to the breasts is also reduced by tight bras, essentially choking the breast tissue as it marinates in waste products and toxins due to lymphatic impairment. Add to this the repeated radiation damage to the breasts from mammograms, and you can see why there is a breast cancer epidemic.
Unfortunately, the role of the bra in breast pathology is under appreciated in the US, since bra usage has been promoted for economic, fashion, and sexist reasons. While dozens of studies internationally have confirmed the bra-cancer link, cancer authorities have been dismissing the issue out of hand, since the bra-cancer link is a research game-changer which has the potential of upending breast cancer research that has ignored this important factor affecting breast health. It’s like researching lung cancer while ignoring smoking (which was the case in the early 1900’s.)
Research into breast disease which ignores the constrictive impact of bras on breast lymphatics and circulation is flawed. However, the breast cancer industry insists that the cause of breast cancer is mostly unknown (apart from an approximately 5% cause from genetics), and insists that early detection of tumors with mammograms followed by treatment is the only alternative.
One of the major concerns that the cancer industry has had about the bra- cancer link is that women would avoid mammograms if they believed that their breast cancer risk was low due to eliminating bra usage. If the medical model for breast cancer management requires regular mammograms, then anything which can get in the way of that message is silenced. If becoming bra-free lowers risk, then why get mammograms, which are painful and exposes women to increased cancer rates through radiation damage? The promotion of mammograms as the alternative to prevention has created a multi-billion dollar mammogram industry. Prevention by bra removal is not lucrative for the medical industry. Dismissing the bra-cancer link, which is a major way women can effectively lower breast cancer risk, keeps women coming for their mammograms to detect the tumor once it appears.
As a result, women are not warned about the impact their bras are having on their breast health. Breast pain and cysts, in addition to cancer, are mostly the result of tight bras. Breathing is reduced by wearing bras. The sympathetic nervous system is harmed by wearing bras. The only thing that benefits from wearing bras is the bra industry which profits from bra sales, and the medical industry which profits from cancer detection and treatment.
Fortunately, becoming bra-free is now the fashion. Women have become skeptical of the alleged need for uncomfortable bras, and have opted for freedom and comfort. Gender-based clothing is also in question, as women ask why they “need” bras in the first place if men do not. While the bra industry has created cultural narratives which claim bras are “needed for support”, research shows that breasts support themselves when the natural suspensory ligaments in the breasts are allowed to function and hold the weight of the breasts by themselves. In fact, bras cause the breasts to droop more than they would naturally, since the artificial support from the bra results in these suspensory ligaments becoming weak and atrophying from nonuse. The breasts are also heavier when using a bra, due to fluid accumulation in the breasts from impaired lymphatic drainage. And large-breasted women are not freaks of nature who require 20th century lingerie for “support”. It’s all sales propaganda from the bra industry.
Conclusion:
Mammograms cause radiation damage to the breasts and cause breast cancer.
Bras cause lymphatic impairment in the breasts and cause breast cancer.
Get rid of your bra, and avoid mammograms.
References:
1. Radiation-Induced Breast Cancer Incidence and Mortality From Digital Mammography Screening. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ m15-1241
2. DNA damage induced by mammography in high family risk patients: Only one single view in screening. https://www.sciencedirect.com/ science/article/pii/S0960977611004115
3. Time to stop mammography screening? https://www.cmaj.ca/content/ 183/17/1957.short
4. Is Mammographic Screening Justifiable Considering Its Substantial Overdiagnosis Rate and Minor Effect on Mortality? https:// pubs.rsna.org/doi/pdf/10.1148/radiol.11110210
5. Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras. Second Edition (2018), Square One Publishers, NY.
6. How Bras Cause Lymph-Stasis and Breast Cancer. https:// www.academia.edu/36287546/ HOW_BRAS_CAUSE_LYMPH_STASIS_AND_BREAST_CANCER
7. Bras Cause More than Breast Cancer: Preliminary Results of the International Bra-Free Study. https://www.academia.edu/40226963/ Bras_Cause_More_than_Breast_Cancer_Preliminary_Results_of_the_In ternational_Bra_Free_Study