Why British Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever

If you've ever been tempted to live abroad, here's an interesting tidbit that will send you straight for the next plane headed to Heathrow: the average breast size in Britain has increased from 34B to 36C in less than 10 years. In fact, lingerie brands like Marks & Spencer - which claims that a quarter of its bras sold are a D cup or larger - have had to make larger cup sizes (up to J or K) to meet the growing demand for super-sized bras.

If this growth spurt were happening in Los Angeles, it could easily be chalked up to the popularity of plastic surgery. But medical experts tell The Daily Mail that environmental factors, obesity, and even hormone replacement therapy and - shockingly - chemicals in cosmetics products may be giving boob jobs a run for their money by triggering a bigger bust.

Menopausal women receiving hormone replacement therapy (HRT) - which supplies the body with large doses of estrogen - have been known to go up a cup size following treatment; it is thought that the estrogen encourages the breast tissue to grow. While that may sound enviable, the excess of estrogen can put them at a higher risk of breast cancer.

"Putting women on HRT is giving the body estrogen at a stage when it would not normally have it," says nutritionist Marilyn Glenville. "The more exposure we have, the more likely we are to get breast cancer."

Glenville also cites factors like the rise of early-onset puberty and lifestyle changes as having an impact on breast size.

"Our daughters are reaching puberty earlier - sometimes as young as eight," she notes. "This means they will have much more exposure to estrogen in their lifetimes. Women are also having fewer children so the body is exposed to higher levels of estrogen in the long term, as during pregnancy and breastfeeding estrogen levels in the body are lower."

And what of these fat-soluble chemicals - dubbed xeno-estrogens - that appear in everything from common cosmetics to even (gulp) food? Says Glenville, "We are talking about a cocktail of toxins so it's hard to pinpoint what is going wrong. But many products, from lipsticks to tampons to spermicides, contain xeno-estrogens - and we are applying them directly to our bodies. We know these chemicals will be having some impact on men, but on women it is more physically obvious."

But while that new lip gloss may be plumping more than your pout, obesity is considered to be the biggest (no pun intended) factor in increasing breast size. In the United Kingdom, the Medical Research Council says, a staggering 50% of adults are overweight, and 20% are obese. Bigger bodies call for bigger breasts.

"Fat is laid down on breasts as much as thighs or bottoms," says Professor Michael Baum, an expert on breast cancer, "and we are in an epidemic of obesity. It isn't surprising women's measurements have increased."

Alcohol consumption also plays a role. "We are raising a generation of ladettes who don't care about how many units they consume," says Glenville. "Alcohol is full of sugars that will elevate your blood sugars and cause them to release unstable levels of insulin. It also has a toxic effect on liver function. This means estrogen and other hormones can end up being recirculated around the body and perhaps reabsorbed instead of being broken down in the liver, if that organ has been damaged by too much alcohol."

Finally, larger breasts may simply be a symptom of evolutionary changes in our bodies, signaling that today's women enjoy better health, and are stronger, than their predecessors.