Panic Watch! Big Breasts and Diabetes

Posted January 31, 2008 by Shakti Sombrero

Besides giving hundreds of newspapers an excuse to print photos of women's chests, a new study supposedly links cup size and diabetes risk:

Girls with big breasts have a 68 percent higher chance of developing diabetes by middle age than their small-breasted counterparts, according to a new study by Canadian scientists.

The decade-long study to find the link between big breasts and diabetes development among nurses in the US shows that those with bigger breasts at the age of 20 are at a higher risk of developing the disease in later years.

Examining the study itself reveals weak statistical "links" and no biological causality between big boobs and diabetes. Once weight (a much stronger risk factor) was taken out of the equation the result was similar to every other weak epidemiological study out there. Also C cups had a higher "risk" than D cups--something that doesn't exactly correlate with bigger boobies = more diabetes. The researchers themselves say it best:

"Obesity remains a big factor. Obese women tend to have larger breasts, thereby becoming more prone to diabetes," he said.

No shit. Like most of these studies, we're learning nothing new here--the media just twists the words and numbers into a big scary pretzel. A disclaimer gets tossed into a few other articles:

Experts called the finding extremely preliminary. "No one should be looking at breast size and worrying about diabetes," said Dr. Alexander Sorisky, professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa and director of the chronic disease program at the Ottawa Health Research Institute.

Hell of course they will with headlines like "Big-breasted girls prone to diabetes", "Breast size a predictor of diabetes", and "DIABETES FEAR FOR WOMEN WITH BIG BREASTS". Scaremongering at its finest.