HEALTH BULLETIN .CO: How your control pants can give you heartburn...not to mention back problems, varicose veins and even killer blood clots

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

How your control pants can give you heartburn...not to mention back problems, varicose veins and even killer blood clots

Doctors have linked shapewear to conditions such as deep-vein thrombosis, back problems, and even cancer.

Control pants may be sucking in your fat but they might be damaging your health

So your January detox hasn’t delivered the svelte silhouette you were after? Never fear. You can always fall back on body-shaping underwear or ‘shapewear’, can’t you?

From Bridget-Jones-style big pants to knee-length shorts and suck-me-in slip dresses, shapewear is now big business in the UK, and almost every woman will have some kind of bulge-busting garment in her knicker drawer.

Spanx are the most famous brand, but everyone from M&S to Topshop and Asda has produced their own range. And while silhouette-smoothing underwear used to be worn only on special occasions, it is fast becoming a wardrobe staple, with many women wearing it every day.

However, as tight underwear soars in popularity, medical experts are warning that prolonged use could be extremely bad for you.

Doctors have linked shapewear to conditions such as deep-vein thrombosis, back problems, and even cancer.

So, while your figure-fixers might be improving your silhouette, are they also damaging your health?

Acid Reflux

The problem, explains Mr Jonathan Wilson, consultant colorectal and general surgeon at The London Clinic, is that the stomach sits halfway between the belly button and the breastbone, which is where the top of shapewear knickers grip — exerting pressure on the organs beneath. Pressure on the stomach can push acid upwards and into the oesophagus.

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‘If you don’t have a reflux problem yet, but have a predisposition to it, then wearing tight garments could tip you over the edge into being a sufferer,’ he warns. ‘We advise anyone who suffers acid reflux to avoid tight clothing.’

The unpleasant symptoms of reflux include heartburn, regurgitation of acid into the back of the mouth and dysphagia — or a difficulty in swallowing.

In the case of dysphagia, acid scars the oesophagus, causing it to narrow. Patients with dysphagia often report a feeling of food lodged near their breastbone.

Furthermore, Mr Wilson points out, obese women who are likely to be relying on control garments are already at increased risk of developing acid reflux.

Scientific studies suggests this could be because excess body fat pushes down on the stomach.
‘If weight is a problem for you then that’s all the more reason to use diet and exercise rather than underwear to drop a dress size,’ says Mr Wilson.

Little secret: Kim Kardashian and Kelly Osbourne have been spotted flashing their Spanx before

Little secret: Kim Kardashian and Kelly Osbourne have been spotted flashing their Spanx before

Cancer

Frightening research has shown a link between long-standing, untreated acid reflux and an increase in the risk of developing oesophageal cancer.

The problem arises when reflux turns into a condition called Barrett’s oesphagus, which is when abnormal cells develop on the inner lining of the lower part of the oesophagus, which in turn may become cancerous.

This will happen to around one in ten people with acid reflux.

‘This is a hot topic in oesophageal cancer circles at the moment and we don’t yet know how this is going to develop,’ says Mr Wilson.

‘Not everybody with Barrett’s oesophagus will develop cancer, but there is increased risk in people over 50.

‘I’d say you want to err on the side of caution and avoid anything that might increase your risk factor.’

Weak tummy muscles

Wearing shapewear to hold you in can actually make your stomach muscles much weaker.
Robert Shanks, co-founder and director of London’s Harley Street Spine Clinic, explains: ‘You have an elastic girdle in this region called the transversus abdominis muscle. It runs around your trunk and if you’re not using it to stabilise your core then it may become weakened, causing bad posture.

‘I have also been involved in research showing people who use a support and then remove it are less aware of their posture than those who don’t use a support in the first place.’

In other words, if you cheat by relying on control pants to make you stand tall and look sucked in, your muscles are going to be less up to the task once you take the knickers off.

Could your back pain be down to your underwear choice?

Back pain

Relying on shapewear to keep you long and lean might leave you with more than poor posture, says Robert Shanks.

He points out that if a garment acts like a corset around your trunk, then the joints of your back won’t be able to move easily.

‘The facet joints [at the side of each vertebra] of your spine have to move freely because it is movement that wipes fluid over the surface of the cartilage — a bit like a windscreen wiper. Lack of movement means lack of lubrication and these joints will begin to seize up and cause pain.’

Skin problems

Skin can also suffer when control garments are worn too often, leading to troublesome infections that can be difficult to treat.

‘Intertrigo is a rash that we see in people who use a lot of shapewear and gymwear,’ says leading dermatologist Dr Sam Bunting. The problem is that clothing of this type is often ‘occlusive’ — in other words it doesn’t allow air to circulate.

When air cannot move freely between skin and clothing, it encourages the build up of heat and moisture — and when friction, moisture and heat come together they create the perfect environment for bacterial and fungal infections to take hold.

‘What we see in patients is a rash — often in the skin folds — which may become raw, itchy or weepy,’ says Dr Bunting.

‘Anyone who thinks they are affected should seek medical attention to prevent the broken skin becoming further infected.’

Varicose veins

The unsightly veins that result from weak vein walls and valves are not helped by shapewear.

‘If underwear is too tight at the top of the leg then venous return [the rate of blood flow back to the heart] may well be poor, and anyone with varicose veins in the legs will find they get worse,’ says consultant vascular surgeon Mr Constantinos Kyriakides of The Private Clinic in Harley Street.

‘Some people argue that shapewear can’t be a problem because surgeons use compression garments to help with varicose veins in the leg. But surgeons wouldn’t simply prescribe a constriction at the top of the leg — rather they would use a stocking that gave graduated compression from the foot upward.’ he adds.

Attempts to make your waist slimmer may also result in an unsightly pair of cankles, he warns. ‘One of the first signs of poor blood supply in the leg, which could be caused by restricting blood flow higher up with compression clothing, is swelling of the ankles. You may also find that your feet become very painful.’

Thrombosis

Anything that slows return of blood back to the heart — such as restrictive clothing — could ultimately cause deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, warns Mr Kyriakides.

‘DVT is potentially fatal if it leads to a pulmonary embolism [blockage in a lung artery].’ Medical archives already document case reports of poor-fitting shapewear leading to deep-vein thrombosis.

Wearing control pants has been linked to make the wearer feel bloated

Bloating

Bizarrely, shapewear designed to make you slimmer could actually have the opposite effect.
‘If your bowel is compressed then this disrupts the flow of digestion,’ says Mr Wilson. ‘Think about when you eat a meal and undo your belt — that is because you can feel your bowel needs room for digestive transit.

‘Conversely, restricting your bowel during digestion can lead to gas and bloating.’

He also warns that anyone suffering from the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) — which include chronic abdominal pain, bloating and altered bowel habits — should avoid shapewear. This is because a change in your body’s ability to move food through your digestive system is a trigger factor for the condition.

Incontinence

As many as one in five women over the age of 40 have a degree of stress incontinence (particularly those with weak pelvic floor muscles following childbirth).

Stress incontinence is often triggered by coughing, laughing, sneezing or exercising, but also by anything that increases pressure in the abdomen — like control pants.

‘Both the bladder and colon are in the area that these knickers are compressing,’ says Mr Wilson. ‘If you have a problem with incontinence, then increasing intra-abdominal pressure with compression clothing will only make the situation worse.’

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