Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History in Science and Inquiry

Feb 03, 2017 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, 1audio, 2non-fiction, science

Yes, I'm fascinated by them. Have been all my life. I think this guy gets a good part of it right.
Were you staring at my breasts?!!! (Because they're wonderful & you're flaunting them. I glance at, even stare at fascinating, beautiful things.)

So yeah, I went through the child's comfort, the adolescent sexual thrill (OK, I'm not through that one, but I'm not even 60 yet.) then the father's jealousy (Kids don't share well!) & now the mature (relatively) appreciation of the issues my well endowed w Yes, I'm fascinated by them. Have been all my life. I think this guy gets a good part of it right.
Were you staring at my breasts?!!! (Because they're wonderful & you're flaunting them. I glance at, even stare at fascinating, beautiful things.)

So yeah, I went through the child's comfort, the adolescent sexual thrill (OK, I'm not through that one, but I'm not even 60 yet.) then the father's jealousy (Kids don't share well!) & now the mature (relatively) appreciation of the issues my well endowed wife has dealing with hers. I should be used to them by now, but a showy pair can still drain every thought from my head with a perky bounce or dip of cleavage. What's up with that? Am I a sexist pig, creepy voyeur, or just a healthy male? (Is there a difference? Depending on my wife's mood, I've been accused of all 3, generally just the latter, though. After all, she wouldn't have put up with my ogling, pats, & squeezes for 35 years if I was too obnoxious.)

It turns out that I'm not alone & it's not just a guy thing. One study showed the same A cup gal got more rides as a B cup & even more as a C cup by both men & women. Unfortunately, they didn't take the study further to see when breast size became an impediment. Important info since the size of both natural boobs & their artificial enhancements are increasing. There is too much of a good thing, but scientists have many hypothesis & no real data on why they are a good thing in the first place. We're the only mammal with this trait & they speculate it might be a combination of factors such as lack of body hair, upright posture, & lack of snout that meant a flexible, extended feeding tube was needed. Breasts are the pretty, supportive packaging.

Williams describes herself as a 'granola girl' several times. She did an admirable job trying to balance her tendencies against statistics, but didn't always succeed. It's quite clear she freaked out when she found out just how polluted her breasts & the milk they provided were. Yes, she fed her firstborn hazardous substances & her second as well, although less so. (Better or worse than formula? Maybe.) Her environmentally contaminated sponges had partially cleansed themselves on the first, something she said is showing up in dolphins who often lose their first baby due to pollutants in their breast milk.

If you're subject to panic over studies linking cancers to various genes & chemicals, you should probably steer clear of this book or read it ALL the way through & then thoroughly research your particulars. What is contaminating them & what are the effects? A lot of things - maybe. Toxicity & long term effects are complicated & she didn't always present them clearly. It wasn't always her fault, but several times she mentioned that the incidence of breast cancer in women is now up to 1 in 8, but it wasn't until quite late in the book that she dropped the other shoe - in women who live to be 90. Another example showed the incidence of cancer doubled & later we find out that's all the way up to 2 in 10,000. The odds of being struck by lightening are about 1 in 10,000 which she doesn't mention. Anyway, don't freak out.

She did a great job of explaining how breasts work. They're fantastically complex structures that change constantly over a woman's life & respond to the environment in a myriad of ways. This is part of what makes toxicity so difficult to narrow down. Dose doesn't make the toxin as much as timing does. What may cause cancer in a woman at one time might not at another, but it may wind up causing her grandchildren issues.

Fireproofing via chemicals is one of the most dangerous scams perpetrated by chemical companies. I hadn't realized how bad it was for breasts & breast milk or how hard (impossible?!!!) it is to avoid, but I have run across it in the construction industry where it was obviously hazardous, but still took several years to be pulled due to lobbying efforts. Similar crap is stuffed into furniture to gain 12 seconds before it combusts, at which point it will spew far more toxic smoke than if left untreated. Why? California is one of the most toxic states in this respect & Ikea does it, although both are trying hard to be both environmentally friendly & safety conscious.

I thought my lifelong fascination with breasts meant I knew something about them. I even have a set of my own, albeit just manly ones that don't give milk nor elicit wolf whistles. I found I knew very little, but I'm not alone. The best of our knowledge at this time is not nearly as good as it should be, but we're learning. DNA testing is super helpful & is growing our understanding of epigenetics - how environmental factors cause genes to express themselves. Tests for chemicals, including separating out complex ones, are getting better, too.

There's a lot of good info on breast cancer & she mentions it in men quite often. Men may be one of the better ways to study breast cancer since ours don't change constantly. I'd heard mammograms aren't particularly helpful, but she gets into why & discusses breast self exams including a silicone training product available through Amazon. Apparently doing a proper self exam is far more difficult than I thought, but with training it can be far more effective than anything else.

Highly recommended to one & all. ...more

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