Brest types – No perfect symmetry

Photo By Ambro on freedigitalphotos.net

You’ve been in enough locker rooms to know that every woman’s breasts look different. “Almost no one has perfectly symmetrical breasts," says Mary Jane Minkin, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale School of Medicine. "If they do look exactly like one another, it’s probably thanks to plastic surgery,” she adds.
Still, you’ve probably wondered why your breasts are the way they are. Shape Magazine called up experts  to glean a greater understanding behind what determines the shape, size, and feel of your dynamic duo.
Genetics
Far and away, genetics plays the biggest role in the size and shape of your breasts. “Your genes also influence the levels of your hormones, which affect your breast tissue,” says Richard Bleicher, M.D., surgical oncologist and director of the Breast Fellowship Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. “Genes determine how dense your breasts are, as well as what your skin is like, which affects the appearance of your breasts.” A study in the journal BMC Medical Genetics analyzed data from more than 16,000 women and found a total of seven genetic factors were significantly associated with breast size. “Your breast characteristics can come from both sides of your family, so genes from your dad’s side can affect what your breasts end up looking like too,” Minkin says.
Your Weight
No matter how big or small your breasts are to begin with, a large proportion of the tissue is made up of fat. So it’s no coincidence that your breasts expand when you do. Similarly, as you lose weight, your breast size could change too. How much fat you lose in your breasts when you drop weight may depend, in part, on the composition of your breasts. Women with dense breast tissue tend to have more tissue and less fatty tissue. If that's you, when you lose weight, you may not notice as significant of a decrease in your breasts as a woman who has a greater proportion of fatty tissue in her breasts to begin with. You can’t feel whether you have dense or fatty breasts (only a mammogram or other imaging would show this), so you may not know which category your breasts fall into. And as for those tiny women with big breasts? Thank genetics!
Your Age
Enjoy your perky girls while you can! “Like everything else, gravity takes its toll on the breasts,” Bleicher says. Beneath the surface, your Cooper’s ligaments, delicate bands of tissue, help hold everything up. “They’re not true ligaments like those that hold muscle to bone, they’re fibrous structures in the breast,” Bleicher says. Over time, they can wear out like overstretched rubber bands and become less supportive—eventually causing sagging and drooping. The good news: You can fight back by regularly sporting well-fitting supportive bras in order to reduce the gravitational pull on your Cooper’s ligaments.
Breastfeeding
It’s the blessing and the curse of pregnancy: Your breasts swell to porn-star size while pregnant and nursing, but deflate like a post-birthday party balloon when you wean. It’s not entirely understood why they change so dramatically, but it may be due to fluctuations in hormones and the fact that the skin stretches as the breasts become engorged and may not fully contract to their pre-baby firmness after nursing, Bleicher says.
Exercise
You can do all the chest presses and flies that you like, but they’re unlikely to have any noticeable impact on the appearance of your dynamic duo. “Your breasts sit on top of the pectoral muscles, but aren’t part of them so you can develop stronger muscles underneath your breasts without changing their size or shape,” says Melissa Crosby, M.D., associate professor of plastic surgery at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. There are, however, a few exceptions. Bodybuilders and women who participate in fitness competitions often have such low body fat that their breasts appear firmer especially when sitting on top of piles of chest muscle, Crosby says. “There’s some data demonstrating that breast size and density also changes in women who do a significant amount of aerobic activity,” Bleicher says. “This is probably due to the fact that you lose body fat, but your breast tissue components don’t change so you develop denser breasts when you exercise more.”
This material is based on the  article by Paige Fowler is published in Shape Magazine.
Stay tuned for the new information on another blood test which may indicate breast cancer in its
early stages.

Surprising effects of green tea on cancer

You might want to consider switching your black tea to green based on two recent human clinical studies into the anti-cancer effects of catechins, antioxidants found in green tea leaves.
Prostate cancer results
A study published in the journal Cancer Research showed that men who supplemented with 600 mg a day of green tea catechins exhibited a preventive effect in the transition from pre-malignant prostate lesions to full blown prostate cancer. Only 3% developed prostate cancer, compared to 30% in the group not taking catechins. The catechins group also had consistently lower PSA levels.
Breast cancer study
In a study reported by the American Association for Cancer Research, a group of women diagnosed with hormone-receptor negative breast cancer were given various doses of green tea catechins (400, 600 or 800 mg, twice daily) or a placebo for a period of six months. The green tea catechins encouraged cancer cell suicide (a good thing!) and inhibited signaling pathways within cancer cells linked to the spread of tumours.
How much?
Although animal studies have shown that high doses of catechins may damage the liver, humans have not shown liver damage at dosages used in the studies above.
Hepatologists suggest not supplementing with more than 10 mg of catechins per kilogram of body weight, daily. For green tea drinkers, 10 cups per day is the recommended limit.
Supplement containing 600 mg of green tea extract could be a typical dose. It also contains chromium and hydroxycitric acid. The synergistic effect of these three ingredients has been shown to help keep blood sugar and triglycerides in the ideal range, burn excess body fat and enhance lean mass when combined with exercise and adequate protein intake
Which type?

•  White tea is very unprocessed, and likewise there's more beneficial chemicals or compounds associated with it.
• Green tea is a little bit more processed, it's been steamed a little bit more; oxidation of the chemicals occur.
• Black tea is the most processed of the tea leaves. The chemicals become more oxidized and there's fewer reported benefits from black tea than green or white tea.