French scientist bemused by buzz over bra research
- Thread starter Sid
- Start date
Bras are useless? Well, then he's never been a women and ran without one! What a numbnuts! 
I wondered about that, too. I'm guessing that he didn't study that aspect!
The biggest problem I have with these kinds of studies is that they make such sweeping generalizations. Maybe some women WOULD be better off with a bra, even for running. But claiming that all women would be better off without a bra without EXTREMELY substantial research makes it harder to take the article seriously.
Clearly more research is needed. Maybe Sid and I can collaborate on a grant proposal . . .
And there is bras and bras!
The immense majority of young female french population wears bras to look sexy. Which means they wear kind of flimsy lacy or silky things held in place by hard half circular wiring under the breasts, which do not really provide comfort but compress lymphatic glands and are suspected to cause breast cancer. Taking of these kind of bra is probably a good thing for liberated breathing and health in general.
"Normal" i.e. "sensible" bras without wiring are either hard to come by, or, like sport bras, not really sexy.
It would be interesting to know what kind of bra the women participating in the study were mostly wearing before abandoning them.
The immense majority of young female french population wears bras to look sexy. Which means they wear kind of flimsy lacy or silky things held in place by hard half circular wiring under the breasts, which do not really provide comfort but compress lymphatic glands and are suspected to cause breast cancer. Taking of these kind of bra is probably a good thing for liberated breathing and health in general.
"Normal" i.e. "sensible" bras without wiring are either hard to come by, or, like sport bras, not really sexy.
It would be interesting to know what kind of bra the women participating in the study were mostly wearing before abandoning them.
Yes, without evidence-based photography, the study's conclusions are flimsy, so to speak.
I've heard that French women don't work out in the traditional sense. So maybe none of those 300 women were runners? Though, I think that they walk a lot?
http://frenchwomendontgetfat.com/content/what-it-means-move-french-woman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-mcmahan/french-women-exercise_b_3047601.html
Forget walking in the US. It's a pet peeve of mine, when people don't take their shopping carts to the cart return in the parking lot. I mean c'mon, how lazy (and inconsiderate) can one be? It's the worst at Costco, in the hoity-toity part of town.
http://frenchwomendontgetfat.com/content/what-it-means-move-french-woman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-mcmahan/french-women-exercise_b_3047601.html
Forget walking in the US. It's a pet peeve of mine, when people don't take their shopping carts to the cart return in the parking lot. I mean c'mon, how lazy (and inconsiderate) can one be? It's the worst at Costco, in the hoity-toity part of town.
Hi ChasingShadows,
here is a link for a book in english language on the subject (I suppose that studies in french or german would be less useful for you?)
http://www.amazon.com/Dressed-Kill-between-Breast-Cancer/dp/1930858051
Thanks Hobbit, but from reading around that book it really doesn't sound like they have scientifically proved any link & that does seem to be the pretty much the only text quoted on the web (admittedly, no, my French & German aren't going to be up to understanding studies). Reading reviews both on Amazon & elsewhere on the web the study appears to lack credibility, one of the main weakness being that they haven't allowed for other risk factors (& a lot of the positive reviews seem to be along the lines of "My breasts hurt until I took my bra off", which is a common symptom of a badly fitting bra). I no longer have access to any useful scientific sites, but would trust Cancer UK to have done a thorough literature evaluation (including non-English publications), this is their comment on the subject: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/can.../cancer-questions/bras-and-breast-cancer-risk.
