Posts with tag news

Ladies, we know you're aware of your breasts. Even if you're not at all vain, you watch them inflate and deflate monthly, when your weight fluctuates, or sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. Well, according to The Daily Mail, surprise breast shrinkage may be caused by excess coffee.

From the article:
"[Scienists] said there was a clear link between drinking coffee and smaller breasts as around half of all women possess a gene that has been shown to link breast size to coffee intake."

Or maybe it's just that women who drink lots of coffee run around like crazy, so they weigh less, so their boobs shrink? All we know is that we really don't want this to be true.

But fortunately it's not all bad. While your morning pick-me-up may be shrinking your boobs, scientists have also discovered a number of potential health benefits to drinking coffee. Studies have shown that it could reduce your risk of diabetes, colon cancer, Parkinson's disease -- even cavities!

The key to many of coffee's potential health benefits are antioxidants, which protect against toxic free radicals, and in turn help prevent chronic disease.

And there's more! In addition to protecting your body from potential long-term illness, coffee reportedly offers all kinds of everyday benefits -- from relieving headaches and managing asthma, to improving your mental performance.

Bad news for stylists, hair dressers, and any woman who's a fan of big 'ol Texas hair. A new study has found a disturbing link between your hairspray habit and an alarming birth defect. Researchers claim that boys whose mothers were around large amounts of hairspray may run the risk of being born with a genital disorder.

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Scientists at the Imperial College London surveyed women who had boys born with a condition called hypospadias -- essentially, a deformity that causes the baby's urinary tract to grow where it shouldn't. According to those scientists, hairspray more than doubled the chance that the women's children would be born with this defect.

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That said, it's not all bad news. The professor who led the study told the BBC that this new research didn't not prove conclusively that hairspray was to blame.

He went so far as to say: "Pregnant women will need to make their own choices about whether or not to avoid these kind of exposures."

But that doesn't mean dousing your head in hairspray is a good idea.

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The number of hypospadias cases has gone up dramatically over the past twenty years, and many have been blaming a chemical called phthalates. As you might suspect, this chmeical is found in plastics -- namely the plasitcs used in hairspray.

Evidence is mounting, and certain types of phthalates have already been banned from hairsprays and other cosmetics.

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You might recognize phthalates -- they've been in the news quite a bit recently, but mostly due to their ability to disrupt hormones. These revelations have led the European Union to ban the substance for toys (for quite some time).

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However, before you completely freak out, while research has shown phthalates could mess with the production of testosterone in some animals (and could therefore effect the development of the urinary tract), studies in humans remain unclear.

So, while avoiding chemicals in hairspray and other cosmetics is a good idea -- particularly when you're pregnant -- you probably won't see any official word on this for a some time.

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