Archive for February, 2010

Regular Aspirin Intake May Improve Breast Cancer Survival Odds

Apparently, aspirin, that cheap little pill that has fallen our of favor as a pain reliever of choice, but now has many other favorably viewed health benefits for your heart purportedly, may actually help you survive and avoid another recurrence of breast cancer if you are a breast cancer survivor. The study that was carried out was the first of it’s kind directly aimed at looking at how aspirin intake on a regular basis may help or hinder breast cancer patients. I’m not sure why this study started, or what the basis is for aspirin being a potential breast cancer deterrent though.

The study has spanned over thirty years, and involved nurses who had a wide span of health issues, so the study was multi pronged. What happened is that, sort of accidentally, they noticed a correlation between women who took aspirin for heart health and also as a preventive measure against stroke, since aspirin helps to thin the blood and prevent these problems which are caused by thickened blood, but also happened to have had breast cancer, had a higher survival rate, and less of a recurrence rate for their breast cancer, if they took aspirin several days a week.

However, if you are not a person who likes to take aspirin, or perhaps, like many other people, it upsets your stomach, there were similar effects observed with the same family of pain relievers called NSAIDS, non steroidal anti inflammatories, but there was not enough data on these to actually make any conclusions as to whether they had the same extent of benefit as aspirin for breast cancer patients. Also, you have to consider that this study was carried out over several years, most of which aspirin was still the popular choice for preventive measures against heart attacks and strokes.

Who knows, it may be prudent to take aspirin if you are prone to heart diseasea and stroke in your family and you have also been a breast cancer survivor, however, they are careful to point out that you should not take it regularly without talking to your doc first, since it can cause stomach bleeding, and also you usually should not take it in combo with chemotherapy or cancer treatment because it may have adverse side effects.

Breast Cancer Scans Not Worth It?

MRI's Not Needed?

MRI’s are very expensive, and even if you have insurance, you can find yourself paying out the wazoo if you have to have one for a specific health problem or suspected issue.

That is why some scoffed when MRI’s began to be used as scans for breast cancer, or returning breast cancer, but because of their more thorough nature, or at least their perceived more thorough and less intrusive nature, many were applauding them for the new way to thoroughly scan for breast cancer, and foregoing or eschewing the idea of getting a traditional mammogram which can be painful and intrusive, especially if you happen to have breast implants.

I even thought it was a great thing, and I still do think that the MRI has some great benefits over other types of breast cancer detection because it is by it’s very nature a more thorough and comprehensive way to look for abnormalities in the human body.

However, apparently there are studies now that are showing that MRI’s are really not doing any better than any other form of breast cancer detection, and are not causing women to get another surgery.

They are really used when determining whether women need further operations for already existing breast cancer, and since the incidence of women needing further surgeries found was so low, they have deemed that since it is such an expensive and lengthy process, it may not be necessary. I’m not quite sure that the expense should be a factor when you are talking about the difference between life and death though – thoughts?

What Causes Man Boobs?

We talked last time about how man boob operations have skyrocketed in the last year, especially in the UK.  This is an operation that would be like breast implants for women, except instead of putting an implant in, they are making incisions and sucking the fat out, sort of like liposuction for the male breast.  After all, most men do not want to see breasts on themselves, unless of course they desire to have female breasts, which is more common than you think.

The most obvious reason for when men develop man boobs is that they have excess fat on their body, and it just so happens to store it in the breast area. This can vary from man to man of course. Some men may be more apt to store excess fat in their abdomen, which is actually far more deadly since stomach fat is dangerous. It’s the whole body shape thing. Some men may store it in their rear ends, although that’s rare, but some men deposit their extra fat into their breasts.

There is an actual disorder called gynecomastia, where men typically deposit most if not a large portion of their excess fat in the breast tissue area. These are the men who really generally are the ones who have to get an operation to remove the fat instead of just going on a diet and losing a lot of excess weight.

Your age is definitely a factor too. The older men get, the more likely their bodies are to rearrange how they store fat, and their upper chest just happens to take on that lovely new role. Often times, you will see even thin men have excess breast tissue, it’s sort of an unfortunate hallmark of getting older for men that comes with the territory.

Some medications can also affect whether men grow man boobs as they can change the chemistry of the body, making their female hormones more dominant. The same goes for certain types of drugs. Actually, steroids have typically been pegged in the growth of man boobs, and men are hyper aware of this, especially since most men on steroids are looking to look better, not worse, and grow man boobs.

If you can’t get rid of them by dieting or exercise, then often times they can be removed via surgery, or at least dramatically reduced this way.

Breast Gum – New Testimonials

I wanted to add some new testimonials for a breast enhancement gum called Zoft, but thought it best to just link you to the page where you can get some written ones, and also if you’d like, you can hear recorded testimonials (see link below) from women who have used this gum and seen results as well.  Breast enhancement gum is not a brand new idea, it’s been around for almost a decade now, originating in China with a gum that was made with herbs which helped to release natural chemicals in the body which lead to breast expansion.

The good part about the gum is that it really is just like chewing gum, so you are slowly breaking it down with the saliva in your mouth, which is one of the best ways to slowly and consistently release any type of herbal compound, no matter what it’s purpose is.

Plus, it doubles as a breath freshener, and you don’ t need to worry about it not being broken down properly by your body since a lot of the breaking down and absorption occurs right in your mouth, where it is broken down and absorbed into the blood stream, and the rest goes down your throat, where it is broken down in the stomach and then released into the blood stream.

Think of the purpose of nicotine gum, it’s kind of like that, it releases a steady stream of breast enhancing compounds basically.  Again, if you’re interested, take a look at our Zoft breast enhancement gum review page, and you can see more information for yourself and if this is the type of product that you might be interested in.

Bountiful Breast Valentines Sale

Bountiful Breast On Sale

Hey, just for those of you who are interested, my favorite natural breast enhancement product, Bountiful Breast, is having a stellar sale on their patent pending product for enlarging your breasts naturally, but it’s not going to last much longer because it is, after all, a Valentine’s sale. For a review of this product, which I’ve discussed many times before on this blog because it is an excellent product that I myself have had a very positive experience with, see Bountiful Breast review.

There are so many women who are not happy with their breast size today, but they really either don’t want to spend the thousands of dollars to get breast implants, or they are simply not willing to undergo such a surgery to achieve larger breasts, or they believe it may be too risky for them. Well, this product is a great alternative to breast enlargement surgery. If you use it as instructed, and especially if you get the protein shakes along with it, you should start to notice a difference in a few weeks. Of course, it varies per your individual chemistry, but many women do notice a difference in a few weeks.

Again, for a full review of the product see our page here :  Bountiful Breast Review

UK Sees Spike in Man Boob Operations to Reduce Breast Tissue

The UK has seen a huge increase in operations requested by men who want to get rid of their “man boobs” or as they have been affectionately dubbed “moobs” and so many other euphamisms.

This is a sore spot for a lot of men, who tend to accumulate extra stored fat in this unfortunate area. Oh, if only women could gain weight exclusively in this area, and men could gain it somewhere else where extra flesh is desirable on their bodies when they gained weight, wouldn’t the world be a wonderful, happy place then?

But seriously, men have found the idea of male breast growth pretty scary over the years, except of course, men who are transgendered who desire to grow breasts, but they are agreeably in the minority.

Most men find growing breast tissue incredibly embarrassing because it doesn’t fit the male ideal of physical beauty, and it’s something that is made fun of quite often in popular media.  Ever seen a male celebrity snapped on the beach who happens to be middle aged and may have let himself go a bit, or happens to have a predisposition toward male breasts? They get skewered.

Men who have grown tissue in this area are often embarrassed to wear swim trunks or go anywhere that they have to go topless, like the beach or somewhere else in the summer time that requires any degree of shirtlessness.

Some men are so self conscious about this that they refuse to disrobe in front of their lovers in the light, or they let it affect their intimacy with their partner.  This is why this “man boob” operation has grown in popularity so much, it’s a major perception that they are undesirable, and that has caused a boom as of late for some unknown reason (after all, “enhanced male breasts” aren’t something that’s new, they’ve been around a looooong time!)

Wanna Test Drive Your Implants?

Women who are interested in getting breast implants are now going to be able to “test drive” some of the different sizes they may be interested in, and also the type of breast implants they are thinking about having used for their upcoming potential breast enlargement surgery. I think we talked about this a little while ago, but what we had really talked about was a digital imaging process where patients could see their potential implants and what they would like like with them, not how they would actually feel on their body.

This way, with the test driving of implants, which is only available through certain plastic surgeons, these women can not only see physically what they’d look like with these different sized implants, but they can also feel what it feels like to be walking around with breasts of such a size, and feel what they will actually feel like.  They can gauge whether they might cause any back or muscle pain and things like that too.

This is all due to a little fitted vest that the woman wears with the specific implants she may want fitted into them. She can see what her silhouette looks like and everything too, and can walk around with them for a whole day or days, depending on what the surgeon offers, to see if they could have them and if they would be comfortable.  They can also do things like run and do housework to see how feasible this size would be for their level of activity and fitness.

Not only that, but they can see what various sizes and types of breast implants feel like on them.  So, if you want something smaller, you can maybe wear it a few days and see if you might not want to go bigger once you’ve gotten used to those yabos basically, and vice versa, if you thought you wanted Playboy style boobies and those are just a little too out there for your taste, you can scale back. After all, once you have them in your chest, they’re kind of hard to take out without a major production!

Implants Aplenty on “Jersey Shore”

It’s amazing what types of shows become hits on tv because Americans (we’re not the only ones though), seem to be obsessed with Train Wreck tv. The trashier the reality stars are, the more we eat it up. Hey, it’s fun to watch other people be totally incapable of running a smooth, drama free, intelligent life when we have our own problems, it makes our problems and shortcomings seem trivial and unimportant by comparison.

I’ll admit that, I mean for me, half the time TV is escapism, and that’s ok. However, I don’t watch Jersey Shore – just a disclaimer. The funny thing is, that although I don’t watch the latest reality TV hit of MTV, I do know about some of the characters and have read a little about it since news about the show and it’s quirky, big haired, big muscled, smack talking, and big breasted (breast implants, of course) characters.

One in particular seems to already be somewhat of a tabloid darling. The one that calls herself JWOWW or something like that has made headlines a few times, one for having a new line of signature split down the middle bare-your-chest tops that look ultra classy (yes, I’m being totally facetious), and another one for her going “conservative”. Isn’t that like calling Warren Buffett poor or something?

JWOWW is known for her breast implants spilling out of a big split down the middle of these club shirts which have become her “signature”, and was recently praised for going “conservative on the red carpet.  Any who, I have to admit, I’m curious as hell to tune into this show some time, it definitely looks like it would be interesting to watch, a study in human behavior I suppose, even though it’s getting heat from the Italian community because they feel like it’s perpetuating negative Italian stereotypes. It’s gotta be entertaining, if nothing else.  And yes, maybe it’ll make me feel a lot better about myself and my own life!

Fat Transfers to Breasts More Successful Now

I remember reading with great interest, about procedures that weren’t all that common a few years ago, but were in the process of being perfected, where some surgeons were able to transfer fat from say, a woman’s thighs and buttocks or belly, or other common places where women tend to store their extra padding, to their breasts, thereby giving them a natural breast implant, foregoing the traditional faker, less natural look of an actual implant for the body’s own natural fat stores.  What an idea, you take fat from one area and sculpt that down to a littler sizer, while emphasizing the breasts with that fat – genius!

A surgeon in Miami is doing these fat transfers quite successfully right now, and with pleasing results.  There are lots of women out there who would love to have the large breasts that breast implants can offer, but are looking for breast implant alternatives to enlarge their breasts naturally so they can enjoy the larger size without the hardness or the fake look of implants.  Who can blame them!  Natural breast enhancement products, as you know, have become extremely popular because of this fact, and although this is still a procedure that you have to go to a surgeon for that can be quite costly, it at least gives more natural results.

The obvious advantage to this procedure is that you can sculpt the breasts out and shape them exactly where the shape and sculpting is needed, whereas the implant is one stationary device that only comes in certain sizes. It is immovable, whereas the fat transfers can be manipulated and moved around to suit the patient’s desired outcome better.  I think that is why this procedure may gain in popularity.

When I read about this though, I did wonder about the risk of fat migration. You’ve probably heard that when fat is grafted from one area of the body to another, there is a risk of it moving, or migrating, around in the body, creating lumps and bumps where they are not supposed to be. Here’s the interesting part of the technique used by the surgeon in Miami.  Since fat injections were met with a lot of disappointment, they figured they could try to create pockets where they could put the fat, so that the fat would not be as readily absorbed by the body and could pick up a healthy blood supply so that it could “survive” instead of simply being absorbed and flushed out by the body.

The surgeon has the patient wear the Brava breast enhancing device for several weeks, several hours a day, to create these pockets, and that seems to help do the trick in getting the fat injections to remain stable so the patient’s breast enhancement sticks around for longer than just a few years.  This procedure of course also has great possibilities when it comes to breast reconstruction for breast cancer survivors who are really not all that thrilled by the idea of getting breast implants.  A very interesting process!  More to come as we hear more about this.