Bra-wearing and Breast Cancer Risk: When research supports me.

If you follow enough media news, you might become overly discouraged: everything causes cancer.  The food you eat, the air your breathe, the environment you live in, the clothes you wear.  Everything.  Although some of these claims may be grounded in science, the media has a tendency to extend the truth.  For example, awhile back I read an Internet posting about how wearing bras may cause breast cancer.  I shook my head is disbelief and continued wearing a bra.  And then recently, I came across this journal article, Bra wearing not associated with breast cancer risk”, refuting the claim.  I was intrigued and slightly amused.

Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle Washington used data from an already established population-based case-control study involving post-menopausal women designed to evaluate risk factors for the two most common types of breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive lobular carcinoma, within the Seattle area.  Of the numerous questions asked of the 1500 women enrolled, the researchers also inquired about their bra-wearing habits.  For example, at what age did they start wearing a bra? What was their bra size at diagnoses?  How many hours a day did they wear a bra?  Do they typically use an underwire?  Based on the women’s answers to these questions, there was no association between a woman’s bra-wearing habits and her risk for developing the two most common types of breast cancer.  Those of you concerned can breathe a sigh of relief.

Although I applaud the researchers in their effort to refute the lay media’s claims about how wearing a bra increases your risk of breast cancer and I fully believe their results, there is one flaw in their study that needs mention.  Of the 1500 women in this study, not one single woman never wore a bra.  This shouldn’t be surprising, particularly when considering the population was based in a major center in North America.  Finding such a large group of women in that setting would be a challenge.  However, comparing bra wearing to non-bra wearing women would be the most informative when asking questions about the risks of wearing a bra.  However, the current study has already shown that the numbers of hours you wear a bra are not associated with increased breast cancer risk, which is our first clue that there is no correlation between bra wearing and breast cancer risk. 

So women: stay supported; wear your bras without worry.  Bras don’t cause breast cancer.  End of story.

References:

      1.     Ray CC. Q and A – Bras and Cancer.  2010.  NY Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16qna.html?ref=science

      2.     Chen L., Malone KE, Li CI.  Bra Wearing not associated with breast cancer risk: a population-based case-control study.  Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev.  2014 23(10): 2181-5.