Women with Breast Implants More Likely to Commit Suicide

Women who get breast implants are more likely to take their own lives, says a recent study.

The study, published in the August edition of Annals of Plastic Surgery, revealed that women who underwent surgery to enlarge their breasts were three times as likely to commit suicide as those who did not have the surgery.

The study was performed by following up with about 3,500 Swedish women who received breast implants from 1965 to 1993. By analyzing death certificate data, researchers found that suicide risk didn't increase by much for 10 years after surgery. However, the risk became 4.5 times higher during the 10-19 years after surgery, and it became six times higher after 20 years post-operation.

Other problems were also significantly increased for women with implants. The study data revealed that the women were three times as likely to die from alcohol or drug addiction. Some other deaths, while officially classified as accidental or via injury, may have been associated with substance abuse or suicide.

There was no increase in the risk of most cancers, including breast cancer, among the women studied. There was an increase in lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, but this may be due to the higher smoking rate among women with implants, said Loren Lipworth, a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and the lead researcher on the study, in a press release.

The findings should be a warning to surgeons to carefully screen their patients for mental health problems before going ahead with breast augmentation, said Lipworth. In the press release, Lipworth and her co-researchers stated that a "nontrivial proportion of women undergoing breast augmentation may bring with them-or develop later-serious long-term psychiatric morbidity and eventually mortality."

The researchers also noted that since the study only includes deaths, the rate of breast-augmentation patients with mental health or substance abuse problems is likely much higher. "Such findings warrant increased screening, counseling, and perhaps post-implant monitoring of women seeking cosmetic breast implants," said the researchers in the release.

Breast augmentation is a popular cosmetic surgery in the United States, second only to liposuction, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Approximately 383,886 people underwent breast implant surgery in 2006, the ASAPS says. Among women, it is the #1 surgical cosmetic procedure. By contrast, in 1997 only 101,176 people had the surgery done.

The study was performed by researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Maryland.

Press Release. "Breast Implants Linked to Higher Suicide Risk." http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/532247/
American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. "11.5 Million Cosmetic Procedures in 2006." http://www.surgery.org/press/news-release.php?iid=465
ASAPS Release. "Statistics 1997." http://www.surgery.org/download/ASAPS1997Stats.pdf