Breaking news from Britain: Man-boobs on the decline

Apparently, male breast reduction procedures have skyrocketed in popularity at our plastic surgery colleagues' offices across the Atlantic. (A gentle word of warning: the graphic that accompanies the above-linked BBC article is rather in-your-face.)

Gynecomastia - the official medical term for what everyone's taken to calling "man-boobs" (or even "moobs" for short - ugh) - is not a new problem, and certainly something that we plastic surgeons are familiar with, even here in the high-powered, relatively crunchy San Francisco Bay Area.

Rarely, men who notice their breasts are growing (men do have a smidge of breast tissue) discover an underlying medical problem, like a hormone imbalance (due to medications, prescription or slightly less than legal - classically, marijuana is a known culprit) or even breast cancer.

More often than not, gynecomastia is due to excess fatty tissue and is treated with surgery, either liposuction, surgical reduction/excision, or a combination of both.

For those men who aren't quite ready for surgery, though, there's always this option.