Breast health starts with improving lifestyle

Compared with the tens of thousands of beauty salon maintenance items and endless "drug" health care products, more than 90% of benign breast problems (including physiological hyperplasia, premenstrual tenderness, and low-risk nodules of BI-RADS category 3 and below) can be alleviated or even completely reversed by adjusting daily lifestyle. There is no need to mess around at all.

Last week, a 27-year-old Internet operator came to my outpatient clinic. She sat at the consultation table with her physical examination report in her hands and burst into tears. She said that she had read popular science and said that nodules can become cancerous. She had been searching for "breast care secrets" for three consecutive days due to insomnia. I asked her about her daily life: It’s common to stay up until two or three o’clock when working on projects, and she has at least two cups of iced milk tea a day. Last week, she had a fight with her colleagues over KPIs. She went home so angry that she didn’t even eat. In the past two weeks, she had so much pain before her period that she couldn’t even put on her underwear. Isn't this the daily life of most young girls? The signals given by the body are all obvious. I always think that eating something or getting a massage will solve the problem, but I ignore the most basic living habits.

Let’s first talk about the dietary minefield that everyone is most likely to fall into. There is a lot of quarrel on the Internet right now. Some people say that soy products contain estrogen and we should stop eating them. Some people say that drinking soy milk can protect breast glands. In fact, both sides have evidence. Large sample studies by Western medicine have long confirmed that the isoflavones in soybeans are phytoestrogens. They are different from the body's own estrogen structure and can play a two-way regulatory role: if the estrogen in your body is high, it will help you lower it. On the contrary, we should pay attention to the "greedy for coldness and damage to the breasts" that Chinese medicine often reminds us. Many girls want to drink iced milk tea as water in summer. People who are already cold will easily suffer from qi stagnation and blood stasis if they drink too much. If the breasts are blocked, they will easily become bloated and painful. This is one of the most common causes I see in clinical practice. Oh, by the way, there are also the royal jelly and snow clams that are so popular, as well as the breast enhancement pills and whitening drinks with unknown ingredients sold in WeChat Moments. These are the real risks of containing excessive exogenous estrogen, so don’t touch them if you can.

It’s interesting to say that among the patients I come into contact with, 9 out of 10 patients with breast pain have had troubles recently. There is a 40-year-old mother of two children. Every time she finishes homework with her eldest daughter, she feels her breasts are so swollen that it hurts when she touches it. When she came to me for prescription medicine, she said that people on the Internet said "bear with temporary breast hyperplasia", and now she doesn't even dare to get angry. In fact, this statement is correct or not. The psychological point of view is that long-term suppression of emotions will indeed affect endocrine fluctuations, but it does not mean that you will get angry at every turn. Whether you are holding back a fire or suddenly furious, the sudden rise and fall of hormone levels will stimulate the breasts. I usually tell my patients that they don’t have to force themselves to be the “perfect emotional manager”. When they are really unhappy, they can complain to a friend, run downstairs twice to make them sweat, or even curse into an empty room. It’s better than holding the breath in their chest. Sometimes I see more than a dozen people in the outpatient clinic, and when I feel tired and irritable, I go to the corridor and stand for two minutes, blowing in the air and taking a few deep breaths, which makes me feel much better.

There is another question that people ask a lot: Will wearing underwear hurt the breast glands? Nowadays, the two sides have quite opposing views. Some people say that wearing underwire bras will compress lymph nodes and cause nodules. Some people say that not wearing underwire bras will cause sagging and aging faster. In fact, there is currently no clear research in the world that proves that wearing qualified underwear on a daily basis can induce breast disease. The core is just two words: comfortable. I have seen many little girls wear tight push-up bras to show off their figures. They even have trouble breathing. After wearing them for a day, the marks on their chests are so deep that they cannot go away for a long time. This kind of bra is definitely not good. Long-term compression and circulation are not smooth, so it is strange that it does not hurt. When I go out by myself, I usually wear soft underwire or non-wireless support models. I can just take it off at home to free my breasts. It’s really comfortable. If you sit for a long time, don't hold your breasts and hunch your back. Stand up every hour to expand your breasts and shake your arms. The circulation around the breasts will be improved, and the swelling and pain will really be much better.

Oh, by the way, can I do the "breast massage" that has been so noisy recently? Let me give you the bottom line here: If you have breast congestion during lactation or severe premenstrual swelling and pain, it is useful to go to the breast rehabilitation department of a regular hospital for targeted massage and relaxation. However, please do not go to the programs outside beauty salons that are called "pressing off nodules" and "breast enlargement and dredging". I just admitted a patient last month. It was originally a small benign nodule of 1cm. The technician at the beauty salon was so impressed that the hematoma was removed after pressing for half a month. In the end, he had to have surgery to remove it. It was really not worth the gain. Those technicians don't even understand the structure of the breasts, so they rub them hard on you, and they can cause problems even if you don't have any problems.

In fact, after all, breasts are part of your body, and their condition is a barometer of your daily status. If you stay up late, get angry, eat and mess around, they will naturally remind you with pain and nodules. There is no need to be nervous about the physical examination report every day, and there is no need to pay those IQ taxes. Eat well, stay up late as little as possible, don't hold your breath all the time, and do a breast ultrasound or mammography regularly every year. It is more effective than any sky-high price maintenance project.