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.

Why C-section my not be good for the baby later in life

Caesarean section births may put babies at higher risk for lifelong health problems by altering the amount of “good” bacteria in an infant’s gut, Canadian researchers are reporting.
Appearing this week in Canada’s top medical journal, the finding could explain why babies delivered via C-sections are at increased risk of asthma, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, diabetes and other illnesses.
The study is based on sophisticated DNA testing of 24 babies born in Winnipeg. After analyzing the babies’ fecal samples, researchers found that infants born by C-section lacked a specific group of bacteria found in babies delivered vaginally.
Babies that were exclusively formula fed also had significant differences in their gut bacteria compared with breastfed babies.
“The infant gut microbiota plays a crucial role in lifelong health,” the researchers write in the Canadian Medical Association Journal Among other things, bacteria prime a baby’s immune system, providing protection against disease-causing organisms.
“We want parents (and physicians) to realize that their decisions regarding C-section and breastfeeding can impact their infant’s gut microbiome and this can have potentially lifelong effects on the child’s health,” first author Meghan Azad, of the University of Alberta, said in a statement released with the study.
In Canada, nearly 27 per cent of all babies are delivered via C-section. Doctors say most surgical births are performed for medically valid reasons. But there are concerns too many C-sections are being ordered because labour isn’t progressing quickly enough, and that to many “routine” but unnecessary interventions are now being done that increase the odds of a woman needing a surgical delivery.
Babies, like all mammals, “are naturally inoculated as they pass through the birth canal,” researchers from the University of Colorado and New York University School of Medicine write in a related commentary.
Yet C-sections are rising globally. In the U.S., more than 30 per cent of babies are now born by caesarean. In China and Brazil, nearly half of babies are born by C-section.
“The human body harbours trillions of microbes, known collectively as the ‘human microbiome,’ ” the Canadian team writes in the CMAJ.
“Some people call it the forgotten organ, because it protects us from pathogens and also helps in the absorption of nutrients,” said Dr. Anita Kozyrskyj, research chair and associate professor of the University of Alberta.
“Increasingly we’re learning that these good bacteria are quite important to the development of the immune system in the infant,” she said. “They train the immune cells not to overreact.”
The gut microbiome is laid down or developed during the first year of life after birth. “We start off with almost a clean slate,” Kozyrskyj said. “During (vaginal) delivery, babies acquire mum’s microbes from her vagina and her GI (gastrointestinal) tract.”
Using DNA sequencing technology, the team found that C-section babies had undetectable amounts of Bacteroides, an important gut bacteria involved in priming the immune system.

Compared with breastfed babies, formula-fed infants had higher amounts of C. difficile, which has been linked to allergies and asthma later in life.
The study was based on only a small number of babies (the researchers are now testing 200 more infants). It’s also not clear exactly what makes up the “ideal” infant gut microbiome.
However, “There’s certainly lots of evidence to promote breastfeeding and vaginal delivery,” said Kozyrskyj. Much of the focus on the rising number of C-sections has been on the risks to the mother, she said, but not babies.
“This evidence provides information on the harmful effects of caesarean section delivery on the infant.”

Read more: http://www.canada.com/sections+alter+baby+bacteria+affect+newborn+lifelong+health+Canadian+study+shows/7948346/story.html#ixzz2KjLfe9a8