Posted on 12/14/2004 9:49:04 AM PST by Pharmboy
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study adds to evidence that women with cosmetic breast implants have a higher rate of suicide than other women and shows, for the first time, that they may be more likely to have a history of psychiatric illness as well.
Whether the elevated rate of psychiatric conditions explains the higher suicide risk is not clear from the findings. However, the study does give weight to the belief that it's not the cosmetic procedure itself that is behind patients' suicides, according to Dr. Joseph K. McLaughlin, president of the International Epidemiology Institute, a Rockville, Maryland-based research center founded by scientists from the National Cancer Institute.
"There is no evidence that breast implants, per se, increase the risk of suicide," he told Reuters Health.
Mounting evidence indicates that, for whatever reason, there is a "small subset" of breast-implant patients who are at risk of suicide, according to McLaughlin. His team's study adds to past research that has consistently found a two- to three-times higher risk of suicide among women with cosmetic breast implants compared with the general population.
The "new twist" from this study, McLaughlin said, is the additional finding on psychiatric hospital admissions. Compared with women who underwent either breast reduction or other cosmetic procedures, those who received breast implants were 70 percent more likely to have a history of admissions for psychiatric illness.
The findings are published in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study included nearly 2,800 Danish women who underwent cosmetic breast-implant surgery between 1973 and 1995, as well as more than 7,000 women who had breast reduction and 1,700-plus women who had other types of cosmetic surgery within the same time period.
The researchers used national records to gather information on the women's death rates and causes of death through 1999, and on their history of hospitalization for psychiatric illness prior to having cosmetic surgery.
Overall, McLaughlin and his colleagues found, 14 women with breast implants committed suicide. While that number is small, it makes for a suicide rate that's three-times higher than the norm, according to the researchers.
In addition, eight percent of the women with breast implants had had a psychiatric hospital admission -- a "hard" measure, McLaughlin noted, that indicates mental illness and not problems such as poor body image. That rate of hospital admission compares with a roughly five-percent rate in each of the two comparison groups.
The researchers also found that women who underwent breast reduction had a higher-than-expected rate of suicide -- a finding McLaughlin called "surprising."
However, he pointed out that this increased risk was "barely significant" in statistical terms, and therefore could be a chance finding.
"It certainly needs further evaluation," McLaughlin said.
On the other hand, he added, the suicide risk among women with breast implants seems to be a solid finding. McLaughlin said that with all the research that has looked into the possible links between breast implants and serious illness, including autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, the only risk that has consistently emerged is the risk of suicide.
"It's unexplained for now," he said.
Still, given the new findings on psychiatric illness, McLaughlin said it may be a good idea for plastic surgeons to "take a closer look" at breast-implant candidates and possibly refer those with signs of a psychiatric problem for evaluation.
The study was funded by the Danish Cancer Society and the International Epidemiology Institute, which received support from the Dow Corning Corporation, once the world's largest maker of silicone gel breast implants. The company no longer makes the implants, having been hit in the 1990s with thousands of lawsuits claiming that the devices caused health problems.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, December 13/27, 2004.
oh man that must have hurt.
Don't you think there has to be something SERIOUSLY wrong with this study? If the numbers presented are accurate, these Danish women committed suicide at a rate of 6000X that of the general US population.
If she didn't, would you trade her in for a blow up doll?
I'll take the all natural look and feel. And, the more they mature, the better. My 54 year old wife is HOT!
She seems rather happy to me.
Are you assuming "Holicheese" talked his gf into getting implants?
Maybe she got them before he even entered the picture.
Jane Bond..
I have saw one woman over the age of 65 with fake breasts, and she looked like a freak her skin had changed over the years as well as gravity and she had 2 bubbles on her aging chest, she looked like a circus animal...
Nice rack.
So if you wife came to you and said that she was going to get implants you would tell her "No." and if she did get them you would divorce her?
You people are so full of crap. And I bet, when the VS commercials come on TV you run from the room.
What the hell are you talking about?
>>Would you call ramming a chunk of steel through your body parts to be self mutilation? How about pierced ears? <<
Actually yes. It's a matter of degree. A small clip on the extreme of the pinna is only slightly self-mutilation. A dozen all across the entire ear? Wll that's about twelve times as much self mutilation, isn't it? Maybe a little more, because some of the places on the ear don't pierce as easily.
Nose rings, tongue rings, cheek rings? I'd start to question how well-adjusted a person is. "Booby rings," labial rings, pinal rings? I'd say the person quite likely has problems.
>>Is it true that Tufts Univ. did a study about breast size and IQ or is that na urban myth?<<
What's that? The larger the women's breast size is, the dumber the guys are? Seriously, if I were a eugenicist, I might want to test a hypothesis that large breasts correlate to lower intelligence. But I reject eugenics on empirical grounds, and I have never heard of such a study.
How old are you?
I once had a secretary who had had breast implants - the silicone type - that augmented her B cups to D cups. They started leaking and she became quite ill. She had them removed and was reduced to an A cup. Very sad indeed.
What, with Saline? Or silicone? Silicone not only hardens up in 5 years, the skin around it wrinkles. I always tell girls who want implants that they need to be willing to spend money on maintainence every 5 years or so, lest they look like shop-worn porn starlets.
I know too much abbout this stuff for my own good.
If she's 65+..they're probably an older job..even silicone..those have a tendency to harden with age...and thus distort the body..
Yeah, but is she hot?
actually, I guess technically that's 4 boobs, but anyway...
38...why do you ask?
No personal experience with fake boobs, but a friend once described them as "snuggling up to a curb".
It would be interesting to see the correlation between suicide and other procedures done by plastic surgeons. Unless they spend their time fixing accident damage, congenital defects, or repairing the ravages of legitimate diseases, I consider them to the the whores of the medical profession.
>>So, they are saying that of the 2800 Danish women who had breast implants, 14 of them committed suicide. This extrapolates to a rate of 500 (!) suicides per 100,000. This is 6000X the "crude rate" of the United States! <<
Not 6000X. About 250X. And a suicide "rate" is the number of suicides per year. I'd estimate the average amount of time those women had the breast implants is probably about 3 years. So you're talking about 83X. And if that's only three times normal, you are dealing with a society as a whole with a suicde rate nearly 30X the US'.
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