CLAIM:

Wearing bras for more than 12 hours a day can significantly increase the risks of developing breast cancer

FACT:

No association, whatsoever, is found between wearing bras and the extended risk of breast cancer

Ask most women, and they will tell you that the constrictive bra can be uncomfortable, frustrating and restrictive. But can it be hazardous to your health too? 

Well, that is what some sections of social media users would like you to believe. A verified account on X.com, formerly Twitter, posted on the apparent risks of using bras—the increased risks of breast cancer associated with wearing the underwear for extended periods of time. 

"Ditch the Bra, ladies. I've been bra free for many years," wrote the user, who has close to 2 lakh followers on X.com.

Sharing a video clip, purportedly featuring Sydney Ross Singer who was the author of the book 'Dressed to Kill,' the user said that Singer and his co-author Soma Grismaijer interviewed 4,000+ women in five major U.S. cities over two years, half of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer, for their book.

"They found: 

75% of women who slept in their bras developed breast cancer.

1 in 7 who wore their bras 12+ hours per day developed breast cancer.

1 in 168 who did not wear a bra developed breast cancer 

Within one month of ditching their bras, women with cysts, breast pain, or tenderness found their symptoms disappeared," they wrote, while recommending that people watch the clip and read his book. 

"Of all the cancers women have, breast is no.1. Of all the clothing that she wears, bras are the tightest and bras are the most intimately worn to her body. And the result of that, changing your shape with a bra and pushing on the breast to make a move into different positions, pushes on these delicate lymphatic vessels like capillaries in the breast... And it stops the circulation. The bras' pressing in and cutting off this drainage. And then these women wonder why their breasts are tender and why they get cysts, which is backed up fluid, that's why!," says the man identified as Sydney Ross Singer in the short video clip. 

Are bras linked to increased breast cancer links?

We have all probably heard of these claims at some point in our life, as it is one of the most persistent cancer-related misinformation that is out there.

Sydney Ross Singer and his wife Soma Grismaijer, seem to have in fact been the source of the claims, when they first released their book in 1995 (a second edition was released in 2017). In 'Dressed to Kill,' they drew a correlation between wearing bras and breast cancer. 

However, the findings were immediately panned by experts. 

"Online and social media rumors and at least one book have suggested that bras cause breast cancer by obstructing lymph flow. There is no scientific or clinical basis for this claim," according to the American Cancer Society, and similar opinions are echoed by the US National Institutes of Health, Cancer Research UK and others.

The only scientific study on the issue that we could find, which was also referred to by some of these other experts and institutes, was a 2014 study involving more than 1,500 women, which found no association between wearing a bra and breast cancer risk.

"Despite the widespread use of bras among U.S. women and concerns in the lay media that bra wearing may increase breast cancer risk, there is a scarcity of credible scientific studies addressing this issue... 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 (different types of breast cancer). Our results did not support an association between bra wearing and increased breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women," according to the study. 

Dr Vivek Belathur, Senior Consultant, Medical Oncology, Fortis hospital, Nagarbhavi, also agreed with the study. 

"More data was needed to establish the association between wearing bras, tight or otherwise, and the risk of developing breast cancer among women," he said, while adding that “region-wise studies on pre- and post-menopausal women will have to be carried to out to determine the risk on different population and age-groups of women, hormonal make-up of the pre and post-menopausal group being different”.

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