08.23.07
Breast Implants and Suicide?
A recent study showed that women who have had cosmetic breast surgery are more likely to commit suicide. Although simply just a corollary, meaning there is no direct relationship between women who get breast implants and suicide, the study does in fact bring up some important issues.
“It appeared there was no excess risk of suicide in the first 10 years after receiving a breast implant,” Lipworth tells WebMD. “But after that, the risk went up and continued to go up. There was a 4.5-fold risk for 10 years after surgery and a sixfold risk for 20 or more years.”
“Nobody is saying that silicon breast implants themselves make women commit suicide, although scientists cannot yet totally rule out that remote possibility, says Louise A. Brinton, PhD, MPH, chief of the hormonal and reproductive epidemiology branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute”
What the researchers are drawing from the data is that the women who are depressed or are committing suicide were predisposed to psychiatric issues and problems. Many women used cosmetic surgery as a vehicle to meet their physical needs but have ended up unsatisfied or more distraught at the outcome. Which is in effect the opposite to what cosmetic surgery does for most women. Most women find increased self esteem and confidence and a new spark in life.
“What our data suggests to us is there is a subset of women choosing to get cosmetic breast implants who have psychiatric illness prior to implantation. This results in high risk of unnatural cause of death — suicide and deaths related to alcohol dependence and drug abuse,” says Lipworth, an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
So do breast implants cause suicide? Of course not. There is no solid evidence of silicone toxicity or that any part of the surgery results in a chemical imbalance in the system. If there are problems that result from the surgery, they were most likely a part of the person to begin with - before the surgery.