Here's What Doctors Say About The Theory That Bras Cause Breast Cancer

    Consider this myth busted.

    Casey Gueren
    by Casey Gueren

    BuzzFeed Staff

    If you’re a person with breasts, you probably know that a nice, supportive bra is kind of a necessary thing in life.

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    But you may have also heard some rumors that your bra is trying to kill you by upping your risk of breast cancer.

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    Hey, breast cancer is more common now than it was hundreds of years ago. And women wear bras all the time now, unlike their free-hanging predecessors lived. So... bras are to blame, yes?

    Eh, well, no. "It's true that in modern life women wear bras, and in modern life women get breast cancer," Marisa Weiss, M.D., breast cancer oncologist and founder of BreastCancer.org, tells BuzzFeed Life. "Those can both be true but unrelated."

    Before we go any further, let's get one thing out of the way: There is no scientific evidence to show that bras increase the risk of breast cancer.

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    According to the American Cancer Society: "We do not know of any epidemiologic studies published in scientific journals that suggest bras directly contribute to breast cancer risk or that lymphatic compression by bras might cause breast cancer."

    And according to a 2014 study in the journal Cancer Epidimiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention: "No aspect of bra wearing, including bra cup size, recency, average number of hours/day worn, wearing a bra with an underwire, or age first began regularly wearing a bra, was associated with risks of either [invasive ductal carcinoma] or [invasive lobular carcinoma]. Our results did not support an association between bra wearing and increased breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women."

    So why is Goop saying your bras are giving you breast cancer?

    Facebook: Goop

    This theory has been floating around for decades, and it most recently popped up in a Goop article by Habib Sadeghi, doctor of osteopathic medicine and Goop contributor. In the article, Sadeghi goes over several studies that claim to show a link between your boob holder and your breast cancer risk. But here's what you need to know about all that:

    Most of the claims that your bra is trying to kill you come from a 1995 book, Dressed To Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras.

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    The book was written by Sydney Ross Singer, Ph.D., and Soma Gismaijer, husband and wife medical anthropologists. For the book, the authors studied 5,000 women in the early nineties and found that women who wore their bras 24 hours a day had a 3 out of 4 chance of developing breast cancer, a risk 125 times greater than that of women who never or rarely wore a bra, according to Sadeghi. OK so that's terrifying — but is it true?

    Here's the thing: The study in that book didn't actually factor in known breast cancer risk factors, like family history, weight, etc. It just found a correlation — not a cause-and-effect relationship — albeit a scary one.

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    But before you freak out, remember that this was independent research carried out for their own book. The study was not published in a peer-reviewed journal and it's not clear if it was IRB-approved, Jennifer Gunter, M.D., board-certified OB-GYN, tells BuzzFeed Life. That explains why the American Cancer Society, Weiss, and Gunter all maintain that there is no scientific evidence of the bra wearing/breast cancer link.

    There are a few other studies in the Goop article that Sadeghi claims show a link between breast cancer and bras. But those still don't give conclusive evidence that bras are out to get you.

    Maria de las Mercedes / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: meratspain

    One is a 1991 study in the European Journal of Cancer and Clinical Oncology, which said that premenopausal women who didn't wear bras had half the risk of breast cancer when compared to bra users. But they also found that having larger breasts was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Boob size isn't a proven risk factor for breast cancer, says Weiss, but obesity is. So it's possible that the link in this particular study was actually showing that obese women were both more likely to wear bras and have a higher risk of breast cancer.

    That's a little like saying that ~Netflix and chill~ causes STIs.

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    Unprotected sex actually causes STIs. And sure, maybe some people who have unprotected sex are also more likely to Netflix and chill. And in that case, you might incorrectly deduce that it's Netflix and chill causing the STIs. (It doesn't, but you get the point.)

    There are a few other studies in the Goop article that supposedly incriminate bras, including a 2009 study from China, a 2011 study from Venezuela, and a 2014 study from Scotland. You can check those out by clicking the links above, but none of them show a conclusive relationship between bras and breast cancer, says Gunter. "In short, none of these studies are in any way comparable to the one from 2014 showing no connection."

    So wait, why would your bra be giving you breast cancer anyway? BuzzFeed Life asked Weiss and Gunter to weigh in on each of the theories from Sadeghi's article:

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    The claim: Your bra "restricts the lymph nodes around the breast and underarm area, preventing toxins from being processed through them and flushed out of the body."

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    Weiss: "The fact is that lymph fluid has a lot of ways to drain off, and generally a bra does not constrict you so much to the point that fluid is trapped in the breast and has no way out. And if you're wearing a bra that is that tight and so constrictive, that's not healthy for you, just like it's not healthy to wear pants that are too tight or shoes that are too tight."

    Gunter: "I want to ask if these men have ever seen a bra. It's not the side of your bra that's constricting, where it digs in would be your ribcage and on top of your arms, which is not where the lymph nodes are. And it's not tight enough to restrict lymphatic drainage."

    The claim: Bras with metal underwire have the "ability to magnify and sustain electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) and radiation from things like cell phones and Wi-Fi."

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    Weiss: "It's not like you would have a higher metal content or that you absorb the metal that's in the underwire."

    Gunter: "If it's just metal, why aren't we worrying about zippers and penile cancer? Necklaces and thyroid cancer? If metal caused cancer, we wouldn't give hip replacements."

    The claim: "Breasts are external organs meant to hang out and somewhat away from the torso, maintaining a naturally lower temperature than the rest of the body. Certain cancers are temperature-sensitive."

    Wavebreakmedia Ltd / Getty Images / BuzzFeed Life / Via thinkstockphotos.com

    Weiss: "No, they're not like the scrotum that has to hang down in order to stay at a lower temperature."

    Gunter: "Breasts hang away from your body so they can swell with milk ... You can't compare breasts to testicles."

    Here are the known factors that actually can affect your risk of breast cancer:

    • Age

    • Gender

    • Genetic mutations

    • Family history of breast cancer

    • Dense breast tissue

    • Age at first menstruation and menopause

    • Alcohol consumption

    • Weight

    • Physical activity

    • Birth control use

    • Hormone therapy

    • Breastfeeding

    For more info on all of these, head over to the American Cancer Society.

    In fact, you could even say that wearing a bra may help you reduce your risk of breast cancer.

    So is it even remotely possible that bras could have an effect on breast cancer?

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    It's hard to rule anything out completely — but we don't have any scientific evidence to confirm that now. And we might never, says Weiss. To truly determine if bras have any effect on breast cancer, we would have to do randomized, controlled trials and follow women over time, controlling for all known risk factors. "This is just not a study that could take place," says Weiss. "For that reason, we don't know the answer, but we do know about risk factors that are very reproducible and scientifically proven that people really need to focus on."

    "If you mistakenly focus on things that may make some intuitive sense but in fact have no scientific basis, you're spending time on something that isn't going to result in the risk reduction that you're looking for."

    Bottom line: "Wear a bra, don't wear a bra, do whatever you like," says Gunter.