COFFEE POSES A BOOBY TRAP (read the whole article)

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http://www.nypost.com/seven/10232008/news/nationalnews/women_face_drink__shrink_dilemma_134865.htm


By TODD VENEZIA
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PHOTOS: Celebs Who May Be Drinking Too Much Coffee

Last updated: 12:54 pm
October 23, 2008
Posted: 4:17 am
October 23, 2008

Ladies, if you care about being a C or a D cup, you better put down that coffee cup.

A new study has found that drinking caffeine over an extended period of time makes women's breasts shrink.

Unfortunately, the same study also found that gals may have to make a hard choice between breast size and breast safety, because drinking caffeine also helps protect against cancer.

PHOTOS: Celebs Who May Be Drinking Too Much Coffee

According to the research, regular drinking of as little as three cups daily a day can have an enough of an impact on estrogen levels to cause noticeable bosom reduction.

"Drinking coffee can have a major effect on breast size," said study author Helena Jernstroem of Lund University in Sweden, according to a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Women with larger breasts will be most affected, the authors said.

But don't worry too much; a daily coffee fix will not turn a Dolly Parton into a Keira Knightley, just into a smaller Dolly Parton.

"Coffee-drinking women do not have to worry that their breasts will shrink to nothing overnight," said Jernstroem, who came across the findings during a cancer-research study.

"They will get smaller, but the breasts aren't just going to disappear," she added.

It's not clear exactly how much caffeine is required to cause a decrease, though it appears that only about 50 percent of women are susceptible to seeing caffeine shrinkage.

Jernstroem also said that women who have a few cups a day need not panic, but keep the possible consequences in mind.

"Anyone who thinks they can tell which women are coffee drinkers just from their bra measurements will be disappointed," Jernstroem said.

"The problem is that there are two measures for a bra, the cup size and the girth, so you wouldn't be able to tell."

The study measured the breast sizes of 300 women coffee drinkers. In addition to the link between breast shrinkage and coffee, the study found that women with larger breasts could be at a higher risk for cancer because they have more mammary glands, according to the study reported in the Daily Mail of Britain.

As for the caffeine link to breast cancer, Jernstroem told the paper that there are substances in coffee that modify a woman's metabolism to make her more resistant to tumors.

Guys better watch out, though. Drinking too much coffee will have the opposite effect on them, turning lean pecs into hefty man boobs - or what the researchers described as "moobs."

Apparently, coffee has a different effect on testosterone than estrogen, the study found.

todd.venezia@nypost.com