BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany

Subject: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 02:37 AM

Male soldiers in Germany are growing breasts

By Marc Lallanilla, LiveScience
25 January 2013

Like armies everywhere, the German military is filled with macho, chest-thumping rituals. But one battalion has found there's a downside to all that chest-thumping: The male soldiers are growing breasts — and only on their left sides.

The Wachbataillon unit performs precision military drills at official ceremonial functions, the German Herald reports. Many of their drills involve smacking their rifles against the left side of the soldiers' chests. And all that pounding on the same spot has stimulated the production of hormones that cause man boobs to grow.

"There is a very significant link between the activity in the … battalion and the development of the breast on the left side," Dr. Bjorn Krapohl, director of plastic surgery at the military's main hospital in Berlin, told the Herald. "They need to change the way they drill."

The growth of male breasts isn't altogether uncommon: The condition is known as gynecomastia, and it's caused by an imbalance in testosterone and estrogen levels. There have been cases where chest injury has caused gynecomastia, though it's rare. Plastic surgeons report that teenage boys — who are particularly prone to the condition — often have breast tissue removed when gynecomastia becomes a big psychosocial problem.

In a study of the German soldiers, published in January 2012, Krapohl and colleagues found significant differences between the guards with gynecomastia and a control group of healthy males without signs of gynecomastia. Those in the Guard Battalion in Berlin had lower testosterone levels and higher body mass indexes (BMI), or a measure of body fatness.

While the researchers hypothesize the mechanical stress from daily drills may be the underlying cause, they are not sure exactly how the "chest thumping" causes the breast growth. "There are no experimental studies identifying possible mechanisms at the cellular level that might induce gynecomastia mechanically," they write in the journal article, adding that these findings may provide new impetus for such studies. The research is detailed in the journal GMS Interdisciplinary Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery DGPW.

Other research has shown that while gynecomastia tends to be symmetric, it can also be asymmetric; the lopsided type tends to be more common on the left side, according to a review in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

Over 70 percent of the German battalion's soldiers have been diagnosed with significant gynecomastia. Military officials have promised to keep an eye on the men's breasts.

"The affected soldiers are being medically supervised and treated individually," an army spokesman told the Herald.

[Someone will be here soon, perhaps, to tell us whether this is something real, or just another editor's attempt to stir up some "news." (?)]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: DMcG
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 02:59 AM

Raises an interesting thought on the American issue. Anyone can own a gun, but each purchase of weapons or ammo requires an oestrogen injection (if male) ...

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 11:17 AM

According to a story making the rounds, enlargement by breast slapping is a tradition in Thailand.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 02:39 PM

Does anyone believe this? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 02:58 PM

I was looking for a part time job during my retirement.
Is the training tax deductable as an expense.

I can see this thread reaching great proprtions as some of the well known posters slap it about ( you can take that any way u wish):<}

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 03:12 PM

Whoa up eh! Are you tellin me that if I "slap" myself, I can grow tits?

On second thought, I'll just porn surf for tits. I mean, I gotta nice smile but I like a gal with thick and luxurious hair.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 03:43 PM

No, gnu, you won't grow tits. You'll grow breasts, or boobs. Only females can have tits. No matter how big a man's man-boobs may be, they simply cannot tbe referred to as "tits". Same goes for ta-tas, knockers, and bazongas.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 04:21 PM

Fo'c'sles?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 04:39 PM

"Hairy Mary"
Hi Gnu this is for you ----Its musical and by a 'catter

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 04:48 PM

Man-boobs? I got them... still kinda got em after I lost 110 pounds but they don't look near as sexy.. unless yer inta that, I suppose.

Thanks Ken! I think I know who it is but... ???

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 05:38 PM

The currently popular name for this effect is "moobs," for man-boobs.

The term is believed to have been popularized by a Seinfeld episode in which man-braziers were a brain-fart by one of the characters. (He had decided his father needed some "support.")

I think that possibly "manzieres" were also mentioned.

I haven't checked to see if anyone has picked it up and is marketing the obvious products. Maybe someone with a need would want to do a search(?).

John

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 09:08 PM

Why do they slap their chests with their rifles? I've done various manuals of arms and we never slapped ourselves repeatedly on the chest with rifles or anything else.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 09:18 PM

Exhibition Drill Teams don't often use a standard manual of arms.

There's a lot of slapping and slamming, since making lots of noise is part of the act. Some drill teams incorporate a fair amount of grunts and groans as well.

Compared to a military marching unit (active duty) a drill team is about like the difference between Olympic wrestling and the professional kind.

John
(Once upon a time a totally incompetent Drill Team Commander, at "Cadet Colonel" rank. They should'a picked somebody with a military background.)

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Dead Horse
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:23 AM

The rifle is slapped into the SHOULDER not the chest.
Even IF it were to stimulate hormones, how would it favour one side over the other?
Total bulls**t. imho.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:50 AM

Judging from this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg77K-SqEL4

It's seen most clearly from about 3 mins onwards. They don't carry the rifle at the usual slope, it's held vertically against the chest. That would account for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 08:17 AM

I've done US drill team stuff (there are several videos of such on YouTube, including the Marine's Silent Drill Team) and while there is a lot of twirling and clacking and clicking it comes from taps on the shoes, doctored handguards, and gloved hand slaps to wood or metal. Shouldering arms puts almost no pressure on the shoulder if done right. Timing means a lot -- it's impressive to watch an officer walk between two rows of guys twirling rifles with bayonets attached, and dropping a rifle tossed back for you to catch can get you in trouble.

But slamming guns into bodies, nah. If it happens it's an accident.

This is for the US Military -- YMMV.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 09:27 AM

Sock puppets deserve to have their opinion heard.

Do they live in a parallel universe, occasionally intersection ours?
Do they know they are "sock puppets"?

Let's all give sock puppets a hand:)


""Fear of puppets, in any form, is just old pupaphobia"".

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:20 AM

This explains why Spaw has been faithfully pounding his flounder every day for all those years, he was just trying to enlarge it...

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 12:27 PM

"A report published in the German Medical Science journal revealed that dozens of soldiers in the Wachbataillon unit have developed one-sided gynecomastia, a condition that results in mammary growth due to over-stimulation to the area. As a part of the soldiers' trademark drill, the men violently slam their guns into the left side of their chest, causing the growth of a left boob."

from

http://www.heavy.com/regions/2013/01/german-soldiers-develope-breasts/

Subject: RE: BS: Different Gun Control Problem in Germany
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 03:38 PM

A particular "movement" often may be seen performed by a single marching team, so what the group in question does is unlikely to conform to any "drill manual." Quite a few competitive drill teams (with or without rifles) have odd "signature moves" and some even claim theirs are "copyrighted."

Asymetrical body development is quite common, so it's not surprising that an unusual development is more pronounced on one side or the other. There's little (public) medical information on effects of this kind, but in a group selected for "matched physical features" as would be expected for an "elite" team it seems sort of expected that an effect might be "matched" to a fairly pronounced degree if it appears in several of the participants.

Gynecomastia, the common medical term for male breast enlargement is probably more common than most may realize, with "emerging adolescent" boys fairly frequently experiencing slight swelling and tenderness at about the same age as when breast development begins in young females. This "normal" process generally aborts without significant progress, but I've known a few young boys who've had "breast reduction surgery" (and for a couple, hormonal treatment) because the "moobs" became an embarassment. Similar treatments probably have been applied to more than are openly known, since one doesn't brag about things that are likely to result in "social rejection(?)."

Among young male subjects who may have reduction treatments, it's difficult to tell which are actual gynecomastia and which are just obesity, but public discussion seems unnecessary for individual cases.

Cases of later life gynecomastia are well enough known, but nothing found in readily accessible medical literature implicates "mechanical abuse" as a cause. Physical stimulation of the appropriate areas can induce lactation, where the appropriate "equipment development" is already in place, but the hormones most generally stimulated oppose those normally though to cause breast development. Adoptive mothers sometimes are encouraged to induce lactation by this and other means, although few are able to produce sufficiently for complete support of an infant if they've not been still productive from a recent other delivery. The same hormones stimulated by "manipulations" are believed to also facilitate "bonding," so some authorities recommend the attempt even if production is even minimal, and nearly complete supplemental feeding of the infant is needed.

Since a "team" of the kind cited here likely eats together, an unusual element in their diet might increase the likelihood that higher than usual percentages of the group might experience similar effects. With a team "selected for physical similarities" it might also be the case that several of them took the same drugs (steroids?) to achieve the gorgious development that won them their place on the team. (Maybe they took estrogen so they wouldn't have to shave so often? - anything for the team!!!)

The occurance may be real (but it is just a "news" report); but I'm reluctant to accept the "explanation" at face value.

John