Male breast reduction surgery is a booming business. While most industries are in a downward tailspin, breast reduction surgery in men is growing at double-digit rates.
Other efforts, some legitimate, some not, are also cropping up, all intended to help men deal with this embarassing problem:
Exercise programs to reduce male breast size.
Liposuction--Not just for the belly!
Plastic surgery
Gynexin--a supplement that purportedly reduces male breast size.
Conventional medical treatment also includes estrogen blocking drugs, the same ones used to treat breast cancer, drugs like tamoxifen. There's even clothing intended to make breasts less obvious.
While male breast enlargement--"gynecomastia"--can occasionally occur due to rare endocrinologic problems, such as high prolactin hormone levels (hyperprolactinemia) or somewhat more commonly as failed testosterone production (hypogonadism), the vast majority of men who suffer with this problem simply have high estrogen levels.
Makes sense: Women develop larger breasts during development mostly due to increased levels of estrogen. A parallel situation in men likewise stimulates breast tissue.
So where does the excess estrogen come from?
Visceral fat converts testosterone to estrogen. Men with excess visceral fat therefore develop low levels of testosterone and high levels of estrogen. Estrogen levels can, in fact, be substantially higher compared to slender males.
So what foods cause the accumulation of visceral fat and, thereby, increased estrogen and decreased testosterone?
Foods that increase blood glucose and insulin to the greatest degree are the foods that begin this cascade. The common foods that increase blood sugar the most? Here's a list, starting with most blood glucose-insulin provoke at the top, least at the bottom:
Gluten-free foods (dried, pulverized cornstarch, rice starch, potato starch, tapioca starch)
Whole wheat bread
Sucrose
Milky Way bars
Snickers bars
So the whole wheat sandwiches you've been eating increase blood sugar and insulin, leading to visceral fat. (And, yes, whole wheat bread increases blood sugar higher than Milky Way bars and Snickers bars.) The more visceral fat grows, the more resistant to the effects of insulin you become, further escalating blood sugar. Estrogen increases, testosterone drops, mammary gland tissue grows, normal male breasts grow to B- or C-cup size.
Yet again, an entire industry is growing from the unintended consequence of conventional advice. In this instance, the advice to "eat more healthy whole grains" leads to this booming industry of male breast reduction efforts from surgery to medications to clothing. The REAL solution: Eliminate the foods that start the process in the first place.