A couple of blogs ago I wrote about bra burning. Well, actually I wrote about how much more comfortable we women would be if we didn’t wear bras. Of course, I was being a bit light-hearted about it all, but whammo – you just never know when something like that takes another turn or twist in life.
Last week in the Op Ed section of the Wilmington (DE) News Journal was a letter about a book called Dressed to Kill; The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer. The book, written in the mid 1990’s, has some fascinating perspectives on how wearing a bra can increase one’s risk of breast cancer. In the letter, the writer went on to say that there is also no evidence that wearing a bra prevents that inevitable trip south that our breasts make as age. While I haven’t read the book, the premise is that bras bind up the natural flow of our capillary and lymphatic systems and can contribute to the development of cancer. Aha! I said, I was right about bras – but, for the wrong reason.
As in any of these studies this information may or may not be nailed-to-the-floor scientific evidence. However, last year my loving spouse had an attack of cardiac atrial fibrillation (cardiac arrythymia). Now all I can tell you about it is that the atrial chamber in the heart has a sort of spasm and rather than dumping the blood into another chamber (below, I think), it pools up and can form clots. Patients with this condition are put on rat poison – politely called “Coumadin” to keep the blood thin so it won’t form those nasty clots if another fibrillation occurs. (Google it for better information).
Given this situation then, it makes a lot of sense that anything that binds up the flow of our bodily fluids might be a cause for any number of rather unpleasant consequences, including cancer. Surely kidney stones back up our kidneys and are very painful. Bladder infections can actually form large blood clots in the bladder and contribute to pain and suffering. We all know that blocked arteries cause heart attacks, constipation isn’t good, and God knows what else goes on underneath our amazing sack of skin in the dark recesses of our body.
Come to think of it, in our au naturel state nothing binds us up. Maybe the healthiest alternative is to go naked. It has its advantages – don’t have to keep “in style,” no dry cleaning bills, no need for a washer and dryer, a walk-in closet space could be used as an extra bedroom for small people. We could fill our minds with much more useful information instead of wasting it deciding what to wear, what color looks best, or whether or not a certain outfit makes us look fat. And our time – think of the time spent shopping for clothes – hey, we could read the classics, listen to music, volunteer at a non-profit, play with our children or grandchildren, write that book……the possibilities are endless…or at least bra-less.