What Causes Gynecomastia

Most commonly we don't find a reason and blood tests for hormone levels come back as normal, but physiologically meaning normally, one may have enlarged breast tissue at birth due to maternal hormones, during puberty when male hormone production is increased or old age when there is imbalance of male to female ratio likely due to changes in production or breakdown of male hormones.

Some patients have more fullness in the chest due to fat deposit or enlarged breast tissue sometimes thought to be due to genetic or hereditary reasons where there is more tendency to store fat in the breast area or increased sensitivity breast tissue to circulating hormones leading to pseudo gynaecomastia or true gynaecomastia.

Other known causes are obesity, use of androgenic drugs or substances like androgenic steroids or prohormones or even some prescription medications side effects include gynecomastia.

Other causes can be due to medical conditions like liver or testicular disease or rarely due to sinister causes like cancer of the breast or the pituitary a part of the brain. So, we recommend seeing your GP in the first instance to rule these out.

Last but not least lifestyle and environmental causes believed to contribute to gynaecomastia are estrogenic chemicals in pesticides in or plastics present or used in food production. For lifestyle recreational drugs like cannabis use or sedentary living may also contribute to gynaecomastia.