Tight pants and skinny jeans may be hazardous to health

Warning : Tight pants and skinny jeans may be hazardous to  health

Neurologists have long known about the dangers of girdles. But until recently, when a fifteen-year-old girl came to a neurologist complaining of persistent abdominal pain and numbness in her thigh, The neurologist  had no idea teens could be at risk. It turned out she had been wearing  a particular brand of shapewear under her soccer uniform, and the snug  garment had caused nerve damage in her leg, a condition called meralgia paresthetica, as well as her abdominal pain. And research suggests that tight clothing can cause all sorts of other health problems, including blood clots and bladder and vaginal infections.

"When you're wearing skinny jeans to make yourself skinny that's not the point," Dr. Nicholas Morrissey, vascular surgeon with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center, told to Health Pop. "Skinny jeans are meant to accentuate the way you look, not to make yourself look another way."

Men should be especially concerned when trying to squeeze on tight pants. Morrissey cautioned that one of the problems with wearing skinny jeans is that it can cause a testicular torsion, where one testicle gets twisted on itself. If left untreated, the torsion can cut off circulation and cause the testicle to die. While there have been reported cases of testicular torsion from tight clothing, none have got so severe that a man has lost one of his testicles. Normally the condition is so painful that people seek help pretty quickly, he said.

"Clothing isn't designed to give us a shape that we don't have, and that's where people get in trouble," he added.

What exactly can go wrong when wearing too-tight clothing? A common complaint is a numbness going down one's thigh known as meralgia paresthetica. Morrissey explained that there is a sensory nerve that comes from your pelvis that provides sensation to parts of your thigh. People who wear skinny jeans sometimes say they feel a numbness going down their leg because of the constriction. Their thigh then goes to sleep, and when they stand up, it feels like their foot isn't under them.

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Tight Pants Syndrome

Dr. John Michael Li, a neurologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told CBS Miami that  some  people suffer from "tight pants syndrome," marked by abdominal discomfort, heartburn and belching from wearing those skin-tight slacks. Normally the pants are three inches too small for the person's waist.

"When you put pressure on the abdomen, your food doesn't digest. It risks not being able to be digested properly especially for people who have reflux esophagitis, heartburn or chronic heartburn. Tight clothing can aggravate those problems," he added.

"Men only need one, but it would be a heck of a thing to lose one because of your jeans," Morrissey commented.

A recent survey of 2,000 British men conducted by TENA Men, which makes garments for men with bladder problems, showed that one in 10 men have had discomfort from wearing skinny jeans, the Telegraph reported. Half of those men said they had problems with their groin, while over a quarter of them had bladder trouble. One in five had a twisted testicle.

A recommendation from the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme prompted the ACCC to commission tests on a range of clothing and textiles that come into direct contact with the skin.

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 Does not washing  jeans pose a health risk?

To wash or not to wash?  It is a  long-running debate..

The argument for not washing your jeans has traditionally been about making your denim last longer. Hot water and detergent can speed up how quickly your jeans fade.  One manufacturer o sees it from an environmental perspective. According to him not washing your jeans saves water and energy. But is it a good message  on building sustainability? Is it safe?

There is no evidence that not washing jeans is hazardous to your health, said Bernhard Redl, an associate professor in the molecular biology department at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. That is, when they are worn under normal conditions, such as everyday street wear.

Bacteria, skin cells, and sweat are transferred to our pants from our own body but "skin microorganisms are generally not hazardous to ourselves," said Rachel McQueen, a professor of human ecology at the University of Alberta in Canada. McQueen's research focuses on the development and retention of odors in textiles.

"There are environments where having sterile clothing is important," McQueen said. That would be true in a hospital, for example, where clothing can transfer infections. "However," she added, "sanitizing your hands is going to be a more important issue here than washing your jeans."

A few years ago, one of McQueen's students wore his jeans for 15 months straight without a single wash and then tested the level of bacteria on them. The student-teacher team was surprised to find that the unwashed jeans carried nearly the same amount of bacteria as those same pants after they had been washed and then worn for another 13 days.

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Is recycling plastic water bottles for rubbish Jeans  earth-friendly and healthy?

According to one Jeans manufacturer  he uses denim that is made from cotton and recycled plastic bottles. Essentially, every pair utilizes eight plastic bottles.  Utilizing waste plastic bottles for producing jeans is the excuse by manufacturers that the act ion is ecofriendly. But, in effect the product out of  waste recycling will not be healthy for our WAIST!

Do you wish that  your next pair of Jeans be made from recycled water bottles?

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Even a teetotaler has to wear  Jeans-made-from-Beer-Bottles

Are you a teetotaler or one who hates liquor including beer?  You may be wearing the blue jeans made out of beer bottles! A company  has developed a process where they collect, sort, clean, shred and melt plastic beer bottles. After that, they blend them with cotton and spin them into yarn. Of course I’m simplifying the process. The manufacturer calls it earth spun apparel!

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The dirty secret behind Jeans and bras

Greenpeace, an international NGO went behind the scenes to two major towns of jeans and bra manufacturing, and discovered widespread pollution.

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Greenpeace has released a report examining two textile industry towns in Guangdong province. This behind-the-scenes look at how our clothing is produced may make you think twice before queuing up for Christmas sales. They visited Xintang, the "Jeans Capital of the World which  produces over 260 million pairs of jeans a year, equivalent to 60% of China's total jeans production, and 40% of the jeans sold in the US each year.and Gurao, a manufacturing town 80% of whose economy is devoted to bras, underwear, and other clothing articles.

Blue jeans are much dirtier than you might ever guess. That cool distressed denim wash is the result of a several chemical-intensive washes. Fabric printing and dyeing involves such heavy metals as cadmium, lead and mercury - not stuff that you want to be getting near your bare skin!

Greenpeace testing found five heavy metals (cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead, and copper) in 17 out of 21 water and sediment samples taken from throughout Xintang and Gurao. In one samples, cadmium exceeded China's national limits by 128 times!

The villagers they met complained about the printing and dyeing factories' wastewater discharge into the local river, which flows into the Pearl River Delta.  "Everyone says that people who work in dyeing and washing have reproductive and fertility problems. My cousin once worked in a dyeing plant. He died of pleurisy," said Lin Zhixin, a migrant worker from Sichuan who works in jeans sewing.

In 2009, Gurao produced more than 200 million bras - enough for every third woman in China to have one. But this prosperity has come at the cost of the degradation of the local river, the Xiao Xi.

Villagers nearby say that the dirty, fetid river is no longer fit for drinking or laundry. Fish no longer live in the river. People living near the river complain that they must frequently endure the stench from the wastewater, and when the river overflows, their yards and homes are flooded by wastewater.

"The water is discharged from the dyeing factories upstream. Sometimes it smells really awful. And every time the color of the water is different - I've seen every color imaginable," said Ren Shan, a migrant worker from Guizhou.

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