Breast Augmentation Suicide Rate
A recent Canadian study suggests breast implants are linked to lower cancer rates, but higher suicide rates among women. Information was collected from 24,600 women participating in the 15 year study “who had received breast implants for cosmetic purposes between 1974 and 1989”. The findings revealed a suicide rate 73% higher and cancer rate 26% lower than the general population. During this period 480 women in the study had died; 58 to suicide and 229 to cancer compared to the expected 33 and 303, respectively, from the general female population.
The lower cancer rate can be explained by the physical conditions required to become a plastic surgery candidate: you must be in good health. Also, cosmetic surgery is considered a ‘luxury’ so the socio-economic status of patients tends to be higher than the average person.
But what can explain the higher rate of suicide? Isn’t cosmetic surgery supposed to make people feel better about their self image, self esteem, etc.? Apparently fixing the outside doesn’t fix the inside; kind of sounds like the saying ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’. “Studies have characterized women who receive breast implants by a low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and more frequent mental illnesses such as depression”. In such instances candidates may need to receive psychological counseling to be a mentally healthy person before going under the knife.
Cosmetic surgery isn’t going away any time soon. In 2006 11 million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed (7% increase from 2005) with breast augmentation being the top surgical procedure (329,000). Both surgeons and patients can improve this problem. Surgeons need to do a thorough job of evaluating plastic surgery candidates and the candidates need to have a stronger self image as well as an ideal goal.
Could it be that women who are likely to get breast implants already suffer from psychological issues, self esteem problems and depression anyway….and that their suicides are related to that and not the breast implants themselves?
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