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Ten dietary and lifestyle interventions to resolve gynecomastia or swelling of male breast tissue without resorting to pharmaceutical drugs or surgery.
Gynecomastia, known colloquially as “man boobs”, is a benign enlargement and swelling of breast tissue in males.
It is thought to be caused by an imbalance of the hormones estrogen and testosterone. One or both breasts may be affected.
According to some estimates, about half of adolescent boys experience at least some breast development during puberty.
Living in Florida where swimming and beach activities are popular year-round, however, I can tell you it surely seems more prevalent than this.
Cases of man boobs are on the rise around the globe no doubt paralleling the rise in obesity rates.
Glasgow, Scotland, which boasts the second-highest obesity rate of all countries studied by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, has seen an 80 percent rise in man boobs reduction surgery in recent years. (1)
While most cases of man boobs are related to problems with excess weight, it seems that even thin and normal-weight boys and men are increasingly experiencing issues with breast enlargement.
Go to any water park this summer and look around. Clearly, this health issue is at epidemic levels. Moreoever, it isn’t just the boys and men struggling with their weight that are affected.
Something environmental is at play here as I don’t ever remember seeing even one case when I was growing up in Florida…certainly never on a thin otherwise normal-weight individual.
Male Hormonal Imbalance
Could all the soy that is in the majority of processed foods today which has added plant estrogens (isoflavones) to the male diet at a rate never seen before in history be a factor?
Not even in Asia was soy ever consumed in the large amounts experienced by those eating a modern diet. Traditional Asian societies primarily consumed soy in small, condimental amounts after careful and long periods of fermentation.
Perhaps the increasing popularity of soy infant formula starting a few decades ago is partly to blame which exposes a male infant to disruptive levels of estrogen at a very vulnerable time for the developing hormonal system.
An estimated 25% of North American babies today receive soy baby formula made from processed soybeans, mostly GMO.
An infant exclusively receiving soy formula consumes the estrogenic equivalent of at least 5 birth control pills every single day! (2)
Beware of soy milk too.
A single glass a day for a few months can lead to hormone disruption according to Dr. Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story. (3)
Don’t ever let your children touch the stuff, and if you enjoy a soy milk latte regularly, switch to coconut milk!
Steroids in Conventional Meat and Dairy
What about all the steroids, hormones, and antibiotic-laced feed used in the conventional dairy and meat industry?
Consumption of foods from factory-farmed animals containing pharmaceutical residues could be another contributing factor to the estrogen/testosterone imbalance at the root of gynecomastia. (4, 5)
There is no doubt that there are multiple environmental reasons for the large and very worrisome increases in gynecomastia across the board.
For the person who suffers from it, however, the reason for the condition is not nearly as important as resolving it…and quickly!
Conventional Treatments
Conventional medicine maintains that many cases of gynecomastia clear up on their own within about two years.
After that, surgery is the conventional treatment route. This is very expensive and usually not covered by insurance as it is considered cosmetic.
Even if the conventional claim of spontaneous resolution was true (anecdotally I would dispute this from the stories I hear), two years is a very long time at a very vulnerable stage in an adolescent’s emotional development.
Avoiding social situations that require a bathing suit for that period of time seems unrealistic. This is particularly true in a warm weather climate.
Rather than wait and see for two long years only to resort later to surgery or (worse) drugs designed for breast cancer like tamoxifen and raloxifene does not seem like a good plan that is either healthy in the long term or reasonable in cost for most families.
10 Steps to Banish Man Boobs
According to certified staff at Biodynamic Wellness, gynecomastia responds extremely well to nutritional support and dietary change.
When a patient presents with a case of gynecomastia, the following dietary and lifestyle interventions are implemented as quickly as possible.
- Immediately stop consumption of any and all sources of soy in order to remove plant estrogens from the diet. Because soy protein or soybean oil are present in the vast majority of processed foods, this means freshly prepared, whole foods at home must become the rule rather than the exception. This includes eggs and meat that are soy-fed and animals given antibiotics. Many times, this change alone will resolve the problem.
- Add iodine supplementation. Suggested brands are Iodoral or Nascent Iodine.
- Add Symplex M from Standard Process.
- Begin using castor oil packs over the liver and/or coffee enemas. These two therapies assist the liver in processing all that excess estrogen causing the hormonal imbalance relative to testosterone.
- Increase dietary animal fats to at least one tablespoon per meal.
- Use bone broth or meat stocks made at home for optimal potency to provide the necessary amino acids to the liver for optimal detoxification.
- Eliminate all grains for 30-60 days. After that time incorporate properly prepared, soaked grains only.
- Emphasis on a Nourishing Traditions diet. (6)
- Use only whole Vitamin C (not synthetic forms of ascorbic acid) to help metabolize and eliminate excess estrogen.
- Some people are poor methylators. Proper methylation in liver detoxification is critical for eliminating excess estrogen. These individuals may benefit from methylated B vitamins with the addition of trimethylglycine (TMG). Fortunately, this last step is often not necessary. Avoid synthetic folic acid found in multivitamins and fortified foods.
After putting these lifestyle and dietary interventions in place, many boys and men suffering from gynecomastia will see dramatic improvement and even a complete resolution of the condition over time.
(1) Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(2) Soy Infant Formula. Birth Control Pills for Babies
(3) The Whole Soy Story
(4) Precocious Puberty
(5) Stop Giving Antibiotics to Animals
(6) Nourishing Traditions
More Information
The Shrinking Effect of Pseudo Estrogens on Reproductive Organs
Antibiotic Exposure and Early Puberty in Boys
Just today on the beach in Laguna Beach, Ca. I saw a youngish, very fit man running shirtless and his pointy boobs were flapping!!! I was stunned but I have seen this before . This case was extreme! I try to never eat soy and I tell all the men I know.
Wow!
it’s not a rant, it’s my observation, though i’m not a fan of soy but it is a part of nutritional and dietary supplements for us, we consume it once in a while, and its a good source of protein, but if you have uric acid issues of course common sense dictates that lessen the consumption. mostly of those gynocomastia cases here are not even a soy eaters, take for example my friend but a meat eaterr.
Sorry Maree!
BTW – I didn’t read your entire rant on how soy is good. It’s not.
Lol! Yeah…me either. Whenever people start waxing rhapsodic about food that can also be made into plates and solvents…I just move on.
You can eat my share of soy.
In defense of soy, it is not true in my observation, there is so much thing on the net circulation and discrediting the soy, it is good, the phytoestrogen in soy is not even an estrogen it acts like a pseudo-estrogen but not estrogen, it can mimic the effect of estrogen for females who needs it or lack of it or when needed, and has no direct effect on males, take for example our community of 7th day adventist in the country, they are large population which have their own university , hospital and churches here, they even have their own farms for soy and processing plant, they served soy based foods since they are vegtarians in their hospital and schools, they make great dishes such as filipino dishes out of soy, though to me it was too inbalance (too yin). but surprisingly they dont have gynecomastia at all! i dont see a lot of fatty people, i dont see any gay, most cases of gynecomastia are with those eating inorganic chickens and meats. I buy my soy from them since they are the one here who make fresh soy milk and vegemeats, you can buy it still hot from their processing plant, they use organic soy since they plant their own soy,soy is not bad at all, there are so many benefits, but in moderation or should be organic and non-gmo. they can spot a soy that is gmo by the appearance of the soybeans.
Uh…you don’t see any gay? Yeah…that is what my Pakistani relatives say about Karachi….I am sure there isn’t anything cultural going on there at all…like the tremendously conservative society in those two countries. Ahem.
I am a former Seventh Day Adventist & much of my family is adventist still. My 12 year old nephew and his father both have moobs; they eat the typical vegatarian SDA diet which tends to be high in processed carbs and processed soy products. There was always high population of overweight people in all of the churches I attended. Also, there are gay people in the SDA community, they just tend to keep quiet to avoid judgement from others, although there are a few SDA churches as well as online communities ministering to gay adventists. Thankfully, it seems like some people in adventism are beginning to wake up to the errors in the SDA “health message” as I have a few relatives who are adopting more Weston Price or paleo-type diets.
My point is that if you use the SDA community to defend the use of soy as a health food, your argument will crumble pretty quickly…
An infant exclusively receiving soy formula consumes the estrogenic equivalent of at least 5 birth control pills every single day! <— this is crazy!
i know a kid that has had this for some time.. his conventional doc tells his adoptive mom that it’s “normal”… I mentioned the soy (they’re vegan!!!) and she absolutely blew her top at me. “It’s NORMAL! THE DOCTOR SAID IT IS NORMAL! Are YOU a DOCTOR now?!” …. yyyyyyeah, that was the LAST time i went there..
I know how you feel! Someone asked me for advice about soy formula for their son (because we had been gluten/casein/soy/corn free because of food issues, I had done a great deal of research, and I was studying to become a homeopathic doctor). I mentioned soy may not be the best choice because it increased estrogen exposure. She called me a B and told another friend what a B I was for even suggesting that. I stopped offering my opinions for quite some time after that! I was like, geez, you asked me what I thought lady.
I was told by a man years ago that his heart medication caused it, that and other areas on him to shrink. Yikes! Non-organic can also grow boobs on all genders. Animals aren’t the only ones being pumped up.