Facts you should know about your breasts

It is no secret that both men and women are obsessed with breasts. Apart from being simple lust objects, female breasts are actually surprising, versatile, and highly individual parts of a woman’s body. Check out these bodacious boob facts you didn’t know.

Although breast cancer is a serious health threat to women, but your breasts should not only conjure up thoughts of mammograms, mastectomies, and medical issues. Breasts as we know them are unique to the human female body, and there are many things that most people don’t know about them.

• Human females are the only mammals whose breasts are visible at all times throughout maturity. Most animals, such as dogs, cats, and lesser primates, display swollen or enlarged mammaries only when they are pregnant or nursing their young; their breasts recede when the offspring are weaned.

There is no such thing as a perfectly symmetrical set of breasts. All breasts have differences, but most discrepancies are simply too tiny to be noticed. For reasons unknown, the left breast tends to be larger than the right.

ALSO READ:High fitness may slash dementia risk, study says

• Women who get breast implants are at least three times more likely to commit suicide, a risk that increases with time. As the August 2007 Annals of Plastic Surgery reported, it is unlikely that silicone toxicity causes the correlation. It is more probable that women who undergo breast augmentation are more apt to have an underlying psychiatric problem that predisposes them to suicide.
• Contrary to popular legend, the brassiere was not invented by a man named Otto Titzling. Although women have worn chest-binding garments for exercise at least since the time of the ancient Greeks, the modern bra was invented by a French woman named Herminie Cadolle in 1889. The word brassiere—denoting an upper-body harness with straps—has been in use since at least the seventeenth century. It wasn’t until the 1920s that the term referred to a garment that supports the breasts.
• Sleeping on one’s chest can change the shape of breasts over time, stretching the skin and leading to sagging. Experts recommend that women sleep on their side with their breasts supported by a pillow.
• Wearing a bra to sleep does not lead to breast cancer.
• Breasts contain no muscle tissue, so there is no exercise that can change their shape. The only way to make breasts look firmer or perkier is to exercise the pectoral muscles underneath the breast tissue.
• Men can lactate, too. It is exceptionally rare, but since men possess mammary glands just like women do, they have the capacity to produce milk. When male lactation happens, it is usually because of hormonal treatments for diseases like cancer.
• “Breast ironing” is a practice in Cameroon in which young girls’ developing breasts are beaten and flattened with heavy objects to prevent their emergence. Usually performed by mothers and older female relatives, the procedure is intended to ward off men’s unwanted sexual advances as well as to prevent early marriage.
• A woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is about one in eight and the likelihood is higher for women who smoke, are obese or inactive, or have a family history of the disease. Do yourself a favour and do a breast self-examination to make sure they stay healthy and beautiful for years to come.

Additional report by Healthfactlife