Do you have moobs? Scientists warn they could increase the risk of men dying young
- Gynecomastia, also called man boobs, causes the breasts to swell
- People who suffer from this condition are 37% more likely to die before the age of 75 compared to people without the condition
Having man breasts may increase the risk of an early grave, a study suggests.
Men with gynecomastia (swollen breasts) are a third more likely to die by the age of 75 than men who do not suffer from it, Danish researchers have discovered.
Having an underlying disease also increased the risk of dying at a young age by up to fourteen times.
Enlarged breast tissue in men is usually caused by a hormonal imbalance. Obesity may also be the cause, according to the NHS, although the researchers involved in this study claimed this led to a different type of gynecomastia.
It affects about one-third to about two-thirds of men, depending on their age.
Men with gynecomastia – a condition that causes breasts to swell – are a third more likely to die by age 75 compared to non-sufferers, researchers found
In a first-of-its-kind study, experts from Copenhagen University Hospital – Rigshospitalet examined data from more than 23,000 male patients.
Each of them was paired with five randomly selected men without the condition, who served as a control group.
All were followed until death or until June 2021, whichever came first. Some were followed for more than twenty years.
Results published in the journal BMJ opened showed that 9 percent of men without gynecomastia died over the course of the study.
Meanwhile, this figure was 6.7 percent among men with gynecomastia of unknown cause.
The rate was 20.9 percent among patients taking medications strongly linked to developing male breasts or an associated disease.
Overall, this amounted to a 37 percent higher risk of premature death among men with ‘moobs’, compared to those without.
The researchers noted that their findings were observational and thus could not prove that gynecomastia was responsible for the higher risk of death.
The team said they could not take into account factors such as obesity, exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals and steroid use.
They suggested that gynecomastia is ‘strongly linked’ to a range of health risks and possibly to the medications used to treat them.
Gynecomastia is most common in teenage boys and older men.
It can be caused by obesity and by an imbalance between testosterone and estrogen levels, which can occur in teenage boys going through puberty or in older men because they produce less testosterone with age.
Signs range from a small amount of extra tissue around the nipples to more prominent breasts. It can affect one or both breasts.
Sometimes the breast tissue can be tender or painful, but this is not always the case.
Treatments include medication to correct a hormonal imbalance or surgery to remove the excess breast tissue.