Some people believe that wearing a bra might interfere with lymph circulation and waste removal from the breast, possibly increasing the risk of breast cancer. But according to newly published research, there’s no evidence indicating that sporting a bra leads to a heightened cancer risk.

The research, funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and published today in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, looked at around 1,400 post-menopausal women — about 2/3 of them who had one of two types of breast cancer, with a cancer-free control group making up the remaining third — and studied what types of bras they wore, how long they’d been wearing bras, and how much of their day was spent in a bra.

Data included in the research includes cup size, underwires or lack thereof, family histories of breast cancer, height and weight, education level, race, income, whether they used hormone replacement therapy and whether they had had a recent mammogram.

“We found no evidence that wearing a bra is associated with breast cancer,” said study author Lu Chen, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “The risk was similar no matter how many hours per day women wore a bra, whether they wore a bra with an underwire, or at what age they first began wearing a bra.”

Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, a professor of cancer prevention at Harvard School of Public Health, says that the research confirms “the obvious, the logical, that it is safe to wear a bra.”

He blames the Web for spreading unfounded concerns about bras and cancer: “The Internet is a treasure, but it contains plenty of nonsense.”

Case in point:

[via HealthDay]

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