There are pecs and then there are boobs. And it turns out, up to 50 percent of men in the U.S. have the latter, according to a review from the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. And FYI, the condition’s called gynecomastia.
But don’t buy stock in the bro (thanks, Kramer!) just yet. Assuming you aren’t born with a genetic disorder like Klinefelter syndrome that can cause the condition, bra-ready jugs are pretty simple to avoid if you heed the causes. Breast tissue—which both women and men possess—feeds off of estrogen hormones. While women naturally have more estrogen, and men naturally have more androgen hormones, men can easily get their estrogens-to-androgens ratio out of whack. The result: Sprouting boobs faster than your high school’s head cheerleader.
Here, the 8 sneakiest cup-fillers:
1. Abusing Alcohol
Slamming a six-pack of beer every night is bad for more than one’s belly. Alcohol affects the liver’s ability to get rid of excess estrogen. Plus, phytoestrogens (compounds that mimic true estrogen in the body) are present in the hops used to make beer, and in plants involved in the making of alcoholic beverages. And because the liver is largely responsible for metabolizing hormones, a less-than-efficient one can convert many androgens into estrogens, resulting in an exceedingly feminine chest, says Robert D. Galiano, MD, a plastic surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
2. Taking Steroids
A shrinking scrotum isn’t steroids’ only threat to your manhood. So are “bitch tits,” a name reserved for the breasts men grow after taking anabolic steroids to bulk up. This phenomenon is caused when the body converts the ridiculous amounts of testosterone in steroids into estrogen. About half of his gynecomastia patients are bodybuilders, many of whom either have B and C cup-sized breasts as well as puffy nipples, he says.
3. Gaining Weight
Sure, more fat can put some padding on your chest, but it can also throw your muscle-to-fat ratio out of whack. “As your ratio of fatty tissue to lean tissue raises, the body produces more estrogen hormones and less androgen hormones,” Galiano says. The result: real-live boobage. No wonder it’s so hard to find a date while sporting a (non-silicon-induced) 32DD-sized chest.
4. Going on Deprivation Diets
Deprive yourself of adequate nutrition and your testosterone levels will drop. Your estrogen levels, not so much. While some men develop breasts during times in which they are skimping on food, others don’t grow breasts until their nutrition levels and food intake return to normal. Commonly referred to as “refeeding gynecomastia,” the phenomena was first noted in 1945 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, when men liberated from World War II prison camps grew breast tissue within a few weeks of resuming an adequate diet.
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