Wearing bras not linked with increased breast cancer risk

A new research has suggested that there wearing a bra is not associated with increased breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women.

The study characterized various bra-wearing habits in relation to breast cancer risk using a rigorous epidemiological study design.

Lu Chen, MPH, a researcher in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health, said that there had been some concerns that one of the reasons why breast cancer may be more common in developed countries compared with developing countries was differences in bra-wearing patterns and given how common bra wearing was, they thought this was an important question to address.

The researchers conducted in-person interviews and obtained information on demographics, family history, and reproductive history. They also asked a series of structured questions to assess lifetime patterns of bra wearing.

Chen said that their study found no evidence that wearing a bra increased a woman's risk for breast cancer and the risk was similar no matter how many hours per day women wore a bra, whether they wore a bra with an underwire, or at what age they first began wearing a bra.

The study is published in journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.