How are your breasts doing today? Or, should we say your "jugs and orbs and darts and gourds, Elmer Fudds and bouncing Buddhas, sweater stretchers, lung protectors, beach umbrellas, frost detectors?"

So goes the opening of the trailer for a new book all about -- you guessed it! -- your boobs.

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History (W. W. Norton & Company), by science writer Florence Williams, is full of fascinating information about something that society is obsessed with -- boobs.

For instance, did you know that breast milk contains substances similar to cannabis and is sold on the Internet for 262 times the price of oil? Or that the average breast weighs just over a pound, but can double in pregnancy? Or that if you're bra-shopping for the biggest enhanced breast in the world, you'll need to find a 38KKK -- because each boob weighs 21 pounds? (That's equivalent to 2.6 gallons of liquid -- talk about "jugs"!)

However, it's not all fun and bodacious bra sizes. In her book, Williams take a hard look at where breasts are today and how we can save them. In fact, according to Williams, breasts "soak up pollution like a pair of soft sponges." So what exactly does that mean?

"Breasts evolved to be in conversation with our bodies and the world around us," Williams tells HealthySELF. "Through their estrogen and progesterone receptors, they pick up cues about when to grow in puberty and when to make the dairy machinery in pregnancy. Unfortunately, these receptors appear to also interact with industrial chemicals that mimic hormones, and there are many."

Williams adds that breasts are also among the fattiest tissue you have, and toxic organochlorines (man-made organic chemicals), like many pesticides, accumulate in fat. "They stay there for a long time," she says.

In fact, it was chemicals in her own breasts that inspired Williams to write her book. Working on an article while she nursed her second child, Williams had her breast milk tested and found it contained flame retardants, perchlorate (which, according to the EPA, "is a naturally occurring and man-made chemical that is used to produce rocket fuel, fireworks, flares and explosives") and the environmental pollutant dioxin. Investigating further, Williams learned that American women have breast milk chemical levels 10 to 100 times higher than women anywhere else in the world. "That made me want to learn more about how breasts work and about environmental health," she says.

In the trailer above, Williams says, "The funny thing is, for as much as breasts stare us in the face, we actually don't know that much about them." Here are the top seven things that Williams wishes all women knew about their breasts:

  1. Breasts are getting bigger and arriving earlier in puberty, which she says, are both largely due to modern diets. According to Williams' research, the average-sized breast for an American woman is now a C cup and lingerie stories sell sizes from H to KK.

  2. Breast milk evolved as much for immune benefits as nutritional ones.

  3. Breasts don't finish growing and developing until pregnancy (that's likely one reason they're so vulnerable to carcinogens), yet...

  4. Most everyday chemicals in our lives have never been tested for health effects at all.

  5. When scientists and regulators do test the effects of everyday chemicals, they don't study the effects on mammary glands.

  6. Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, according to the CDC. According to the American Cancer Society, it is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer.

  7. Breast are a signifier for human health in general.

Based on her research, Williams says keeping your breasts healthy is part of keeping your body healthy. "The benefits of being fit, eating well and not smoking or drinking much are modest, but appear helpful for our entire bodies, not just breasts," she says.

Most importantly, Williams says, "Get to know your breasts; be able to notice when the skin looks different or moves differently. Even a 'thickening' could indicate a small tumor. Talk with your doctor about whether you need mammograms and how often. Ask your doctor if you have 'dense' breast tissue, which is a key risk factor for cancer."

When it comes to her own daughter, who is now 8, Williams says, "I'd be psyched if she grows up to appreciate the miraculous human body, to take care of it through exercise and healthful eating and to have self-esteem in areas other than her appearance. I will tell her that many, many breasts she sees on the Internet and in magazines are not real."

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