been said before? PETA: LOOSE THE BOOBS

[xJamesx]

hi, i was googling vegetarianism and i came across this:
apparently its part of a billboard campaign in america launched by PETA.
clearly that man is suffering from gynecomastia and maybe PETA thought it showed how overweight the man was as a result from eating meat but still it got me thinking. is gynecomastia related to diet? i dont come across many really thin people with it. could it be linked with eating meat?

[jc71]

Maybe Head can help, i think he's vegan. I lost my most weight by following a diet rich in lean chicken and turkey. I guess it's an individual thing.

Hormonal problems, rapid weight gain, marijuana and several others have been to blame for gyne.  

However I gotta say, i've seen a few skinny guys with gyne.

[xJamesx]

i used to be really really obese. then i lost all the weight suddenly at about 13 and the boobs just stayed. i thought it was excess skin for ages untill i found this site a few months ago.

[vaio]

You can get gynecomastia from being over weight. The more fat you have the higher you estrogen levels.

[headheldhigh01]

jc's recollection is correct.  this is one of those discussions that's gone both ways.  the way i read it, their argument is that eating foods thoroughly saturated in hormones, either meat or dairy, is begging for bad effects like gyne, and i always had suspicions about that even before i went vegan, which in my case was purely for the ethical reasons.  

i'm not sure how much scientific study there is on it, but even assuming it's not suppressed, that alone doesn't disprove much.  i remember running into the story that the european union was paying something like $100 million in trade fines a year just in order to refuse american hormone-injected meat and dairy, i think they had bad experiences with infants of both genders developing breasts and similar unpleasant results.  so not like i'm flush with cash, but i figure if i weren't vegan i'd at least be willing to shell out for organic instead of industrial.  

in case it's of interest, two threads this came up on were here, and there were others too -- http://www.gynecomastia.org/cgi-bin/gyne_yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=1;action=display;num=1101153780

and

http://www.gynecomastia.org/cgi-bin/gyne_yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=1;action=display;num=1087304206

[doddy]

F*ck off PETA. Sh*t like that is just sensationalist turd.

[headheldhigh01]

respect the difference of opinion, but if a change in diet could have prevented my gyne, i'd have posed for their d*mn billboard myself.  

[doddy]

I just don't like its implication that "if you eat meat, you will grow breasts". Clearly, in the vast majority of cases, that is wrong.

I appreciate their cause, have considered vegetarianism myself in the past, but I really cannot stand some of their tactics.

[GynoVict1m]

I am fairly skinny and have protruding Gyne  :-/

[downsbs]

Me too.  

[rcbrown23]

Same here...maybe not skinny, but thin.

[Paa_Paw]

The association of gynecomastia with Dairy products and Meat has become somewhat of an urban legend.

Yet, no one seems to be able to supply supportive statistics either way on this argument.

Conversely, there are Herbs and Vegetables which contain phytoestrogen.  

This would seem to be a fight you can only win by non participation.

[headheldhigh01]

gine2d, for all my occasional sword crossings with the guy, made the very useful observation once that phytoestrogens have about 1/500th the impact of regular estrogen.  so the attempt to create soy scares, i.m.h.o. is dishonest megadairy industrial hype.  

i don't have the studies myself, but the european union seems to have been thoroughly persuaded, so they may well be out there.  but i also think it make strong sense at some gut intuitive level too.  

doddy, not to drag this out, but just as not all smokers don't get lung cancer, not all dairy consumers get gyne -- but neither fact in my view disproves a connection.  so for my part i feel the jury's not back in yet.  may we find the truth one way or the other.    

[doddy]

doddy, not to drag this out, but just as not all smokers don't get lung cancer, not all dairy consumers get gyne -- but neither fact in my view disproves a connection.  so for my part i feel the jury's not back in yet.  may we find the truth one way or the other.    

Totally different though - the link between smoking/lung cancer has long been established and proven, whilst the link between dairy products/gyne is by your own admission, somewhat tenuous.

Even if a link is established, I'd be very surprised if it can be compared to smoking/lung cancer even then. I.e., your chances of getting lung cancer from smoking are so much higher than your chances of getting gyne from eating dairy.










.. Or being a gyne removal specialist surgeon is going to become even more lucrative.

[headheldhigh01]

unproven and disproven, however, are different things.  i indicated the evidence i believe was there, since i'm too lazy right now to go find the article and left it there.  

i also did not try to claim an equivalent rate, though we both admit that is not yet established anyway, i just illustrated by analogy that the fact not all dairy or beef consumers get gyne does not disprove a correlation.  

as for the lucrativity of gyne surgery, if the numbers are to be believed, only a fraction of gyne guys get the surgery, which based on my own observation i attribute to the fact many or most of us only find out what it is late if ever, since we typically conceal it in shame and ignorance.  

but like i say, we can hope it gets better understood someday.