Breast implants linked to suicide /Woman may be able to grow own implants/Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

[Guest guest]

Breast implants linked to suicide

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993471

 

23:01 06 March 03

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

Women with cosmetic breast implants are significantly more likely to commit

suicide than those without them, according to a new study.

 

The researchers, motivated by the debate over the health risks of breast

implants, analysed the medical records of 3500 Swedish women who had had

breast implants. They considered only cosmetic operations, excluding women

who received implants after breast cancer surgery.

 

The 3500 women ranged in age from teenagers to pensioners and had the

implant operation between 1965 and 1993. In an average group of the same

size and age, 59 deaths would be expected, but the researchers found that 85

women had died.

 

Fifteen had taken their own lives, three times the number expected, and a

higher number of deaths from smoking-related diseases like lung cancer were

also seen.

 

" Women who ask for breast implants may have low self-esteem, " suggests

Veronica Koot at the University Medical Centre, Utrecht, Netherlands, who

led the study. " Similarly, women who smoke may also have low self-esteem. "

 

 

Body conscious

 

 

Michael Beary, a consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital, London

agrees that women with low-self esteem are more body conscious and more

likely to have breast implants.

 

" Quite a lot of women who become depressed will seek plastic surgery as a

treatment for depression, " he says. " However, quite often operations go

wrong, leading to unsightly scarring, unequal breasts or numb areas, and

this can make the depression worse. I have certainly seen suicide attempts

in women after surgery who were depressed beforehand. " Similarly, Beary says

teenage girls with low-self esteem about their bodies can take up smoking

believing it will help them lose weight, making it more likely that women

who have breast implants are also smokers.

 

 

Rocketing rate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Koot thinks surgeons evaluating candidates for breast implants need to be

vigilant for subtle signs of psychiatric problems. " If we first treat the

psychiatric problems, then maybe some women will no longer want implants, "

she says.

 

In 2002, nearly seven million people in the US alone underwent cosmetic

surgical and non-surgical procedures, according to new figures released on

Wednesday. Breast enlargements were chosen by nearly 250,000 American women,

the second most popular operation after liposuction.

 

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery says the overall number

of cosmetic procedures has rocketed by 228 per cent since 1997. The vast

majority of candidates - 88 per cent - are women.

 

Journal reference: British Medical Journal (vol 326, p 527)

 

 

Natasha McDowell

 

Related Stories

 

 

Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

18 September 2002

 

Women could soon grow their own breast implants

23 May 2001

 

Half of US cigarettes are smoked by mentally ill people

21 November 2000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

 

 

23:01 18 September 02

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

Right-wing governments may sap some people's will to live and result in more

suicides, conclude studies in Britain and Australia.

 

The researchers speculate that losers are more likely to kill themselves in

the individualistic, " winner-takes-all " societies favoured by right wing

governments, because they are left to fend for themselves. Wide disparities

in wealth also sharpen any sense of hopelessness, the researchers argue.

 

" If you fail under that ideology, it would accentuate your feelings of

failure, " says Mary Shaw, whose team at the University of Bristol analysed

suicide trends in England and Wales over the past century.

 

Left wing governments tend to be more " inclusive " and community based, she

says, decreasing the isolation felt by people down on their luck. Shaw's

team calculates that over the past century, 35,000 extra suicides occurred

when the Tories were in power.

 

" That's equivalent to one suicide for every day of the 20th Century, or two

for every day that the Conservatives ruled, " the team write in the Journal

of Epidemiology and Community Health.

 

Britain's Conservative Party declined to comment on the findings.

 

 

Double trouble

 

 

Shaw and her colleagues found that on average, suicide rates were 17 per

cent higher when the Conservatives were in power, compared to the annual

average of 103 suicides per million population when opposition parties held

office.

 

Richard Taylor and his team in the School of Public Health at the University

of Sydney found similar trends over the past century in New South Wales.

When Right-wing governments were in power, men were 17 per cent more likely

and women 40 per cent more likely to commit suicide.

 

They report that rates were highest whenever Right wing governments held

power both at federal and state levels.

 

Both studies reached their conclusions after taking into account other

factors that affect suicide rates, such as economic slumps, wartime, and

even a surge of suicides among women in the 1960s when sedatives became

widely available.

 

 

" You've never had it so good "

 

 

But the same trend always emerged, even at times of economic boom such as

the " you've-never-had-it-so-good " years when Harold MacMillan led the UK's

Tory government between 1957 and 1963.

 

During that time, annual suicides peaked at 137 per million population. Shaw

points out that rates were almost as high in the 1930s (135 per million)

when Labour's Ramsay McDonald headed a coalition, but she believes the

primary reason then was the century's worst economic slump.

 

 

 

The lowest rate was 85 per million, during the Liberal government of David

Lloyd George between 1916 and 1920. Now, under Tony Blair, it is back to the

non-Conservative average of 103, down from 121 during Margaret Thatcher's

first term in the early 1980s.

 

Shaw admits that attempts to connect the differences to ideologies are pure

speculation. " But I'd be very interested to see if suicide rates are higher

wherever there's a Right-wing government, " she says. " I'd be particularly

interested to see if the relationship holds in the US. "

 

A study published in July 2001 found that US Republicans are almost three

times more likely to have nightmares than Democrats. But a Republican

spokesman told New Scientist at the time: " If we are, it's because we're

left cleaning up the mess left by eight years of Bill Clinton. We sleep

better now Bush is in the White House. "

 

Journal reference: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. (vol 56, p

723, p 766)

 

 

Andy Coghlan

 

 

 

PACKET TRACKING

Fast TCP promises super-quick movie downloads

 

 

CANCER HALTED

Tweaking a protein that makes cells sticky could control cancer

 

 

LAST WORD

Why is the ratio of men to women roughly equal?

 

 

All the best science stories from the web

 

Holographic keypad that floats in midair

New York Times (free registration required)

 

South African AIDS epidemic in 'death phase'

CNN

 

Protection needed for 'marine Serengetis'

BBC

 

Amazon founder wants to launch space programme

The Independent, UK

 

Robot 'guard dog' protects Wi-Fi setups

ZDNet

 

Athletes take insulin in order to bulk up

Globe and Mail, Canada

 

Related Stories

 

 

Semen acts as an anti-depressant

26 June 2002

 

Depression genes differ in men and women

28 March 2002

 

Bad dreams haunt right-wingers

11 July 2001

 

 

 

Breast boost

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999779

 

19:00 23 May 01

 

 

Silicone breast implants could soon be unnecessary, claim researchers in

Australia. They say their work will make it possible for women to grow their

own.

 

Tissue engineer Kevin Cronin of the Bernard O'Brien Institute of

Microsurgery in Melbourne told delegates at a recent meeting of the Royal

Australasian College of Surgeons that he has successfully grown breast and

fat tissue in rats, mice and rabbits. If the technique works in people, it

could be used for cosmetic surgery or breast reconstruction after

mastectomy.

 

Rather than growing the patient's tissue in the lab and then transplanting

it back into the body, as has been done in animal studies in the past,

Cronin grows the tissue on site.

 

A " chamber " containing a scaffold is implanted into the area where new

tissue is needed. Cells from surrounding tissue then migrate into the

chamber and form a three-dimensional blob of tissue, in what Cronin calls a

" wound-healing " response. Over time, the scaffold disintegrates.

 

 

 

Secret chamber

 

 

 

The key to the technique's success, says Cronin, is a " vascular loop " in the

chamber that generates new blood vessels to supply the growing tissue. But

he won't reveal details about how it works or what it is made of until a

patent has been granted.

 

Cronin has already grown fat and breast tissues in female mice by implanting

the chamber into their groin fat pad. This area is on the animals' " milk

line " , where the cells are pre-programmed to form breast and fat tissue.

 

Growing human breasts would involve a similar technique. Immune rejection

wouldn't be a problem, but Cronin's mice did occasionally develop infections

around the implanted chambers.

 

 

 

Disappearing fat

 

 

 

Dai Davis, a plastic surgeon from Stanford Hospital in London, says

supplying blood to the new tissue will be difficult. " We can move fat around

[during breast enlargements], but we can't always vascularise it... it

calcifies or just disappears altogether, " he says.

 

He also points out that there could be cancer risks. " If you are using cells

from a woman who has had breast cancer, how do you know that the new tissue

is not also going to turn into a cancer? "

 

Tissue engineer Julia Polak from Imperial College School of Medicine in

London agrees. " In the case of someone who has already had breast cancer, it

would be difficult to ensure that the cells used to regenerate the breast

tissue did not also contain the cancer-causing genetic machinery, " she

warns.

 

 

 

Hard to control

 

 

 

But she says the technique does have potential. " It is certainly exciting.

It is the way tissue engineering should be going - getting the body to

regenerate itself rather than trying to grow complex body parts in a 'test

tube'. "

 

Cronin predicts that financial backing to develop his new technology will

centre on cosmetic surgery applications.

 

" There is an obvious spin-off into breast augmentation and facial aesthetic

surgery, " he says.

 

But he does admit the end result could be hard to control. " We were just so

happy at getting the desired tissue to grow at all that we haven't even got

around to working out how to control issues such as size and shape, " he

says.

 

 

Marina Murphy

[Guest guest]

Holy cow.  Its always been beyond me why

anybody wants to put fake stuff in their body to appear to be something they

are not, or to suit somebody else.  Shape your mind by what you study and

meditate upon, shape your body through diet and exercise, and work, too. 

Always work. 

 

ed

 

 

Misty

[misty3]

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

6:22 AM

Health and Healing; Armageddon

or New Age

 

Breast implants linked to suicide /Woman may be able to grow own

implants/Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

 

Breast implants linked to suicide

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993471

 

23:01 06 March 03

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

Women with cosmetic breast implants are

significantly more likely to commit

suicide than those without them, according to a

new study.

 

The researchers, motivated by the debate over the

health risks of breast

implants, analysed the medical records of 3500

Swedish women who had had

breast implants. They considered only cosmetic

operations, excluding women

who received implants after breast cancer surgery.

 

The 3500 women ranged in age from teenagers to

pensioners and had the

implant operation between 1965 and 1993. In an

average group of the same

size and age, 59 deaths would be expected, but the

researchers found that 85

women had died.

 

Fifteen had taken their own lives, three times the

number expected, and a

higher number of deaths from smoking-related

diseases like lung cancer were

also seen.

 

" Women who ask for breast implants may have

low self-esteem, " suggests

Veronica Koot at the University Medical Centre,

Utrecht, Netherlands, who

led the study. " Similarly, women who smoke

may also have low self-esteem. "

 

 

Body conscious

 

 

Michael Beary, a consultant psychiatrist at the Priory

Hospital, London

agrees that women with low-self esteem are more

body conscious and more

likely to have breast implants.

 

" Quite a lot of women who become depressed

will seek plastic surgery as a

treatment for depression, " he says. " However,

quite often operations go

wrong, leading to unsightly scarring, unequal

breasts or numb areas, and

this can make the depression worse. I have

certainly seen suicide attempts

in women after surgery who were depressed

beforehand. " Similarly, Beary says

teenage girls with low-self esteem about their

bodies can take up smoking

believing it will help them lose weight, making it

more likely that women

who have breast implants are also smokers.

 

 

Rocketing rate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Koot thinks surgeons evaluating candidates for

breast implants need to be

vigilant for subtle signs of psychiatric problems.

" If we first treat the

psychiatric problems, then maybe some women will

no longer want implants, "

she says.

 

In 2002, nearly seven million people in the US

alone underwent cosmetic

surgical and non-surgical procedures, according to

new figures released on

Wednesday. Breast enlargements were chosen by

nearly 250,000 American women,

the second most popular operation after

liposuction.

 

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

says the overall number

of cosmetic procedures has rocketed by 228 per

cent since 1997. The vast

majority of candidates - 88 per cent - are women.

 

Journal reference: British Medical Journal (vol

326, p 527)

 

 

Natasha McDowell

 

Related Stories

 

 

Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

18 September 2002

 

Women could soon grow their own breast implants

23 May 2001

 

Half of US cigarettes are smoked by mentally ill

people

21 November 2000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NASA targets spring 2004 for shuttle return

 

Europe's weird weather warms debate

 

Galactic dust storm enters Solar System

 

NASA lander to target Martian north pole

 

Single slow user can throttle wi-fi network

 

You are what your mother ate, suggests study

 

Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

 

 

23:01 18 September 02

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

Right-wing governments may sap some people's will

to live and result in more

suicides, conclude studies in Britain and

Australia.

 

The researchers speculate that losers are more likely

to kill themselves in

the individualistic, " winner-takes-all "

societies favoured by right wing

governments, because they are left to fend for

themselves. Wide disparities

in wealth also sharpen any sense of hopelessness,

the researchers argue.

 

" If you fail under that ideology, it would

accentuate your feelings of

failure, " says Mary Shaw, whose team at the

University of Bristol analysed

suicide trends in England and Wales over the past

century.

 

Left wing governments tend to be more

" inclusive " and community based, she

says, decreasing the isolation felt by people down

on their luck. Shaw's

team calculates that over the past century, 35,000

extra suicides occurred

when the Tories were in power.

 

" That's equivalent to one suicide for every

day of the 20th Century, or two

for every day that the Conservatives ruled, "

the team write in the Journal

of Epidemiology and Community Health.

 

Britain's Conservative Party declined to comment

on the findings.

 

 

Double trouble

 

 

Shaw and her colleagues found that on average,

suicide rates were 17 per

cent higher when the Conservatives were in power,

compared to the annual

average of 103 suicides per million population

when opposition parties held

office.

 

Richard Taylor and his team in the School of

Public Health at the University

of Sydney found similar trends over the past

century in New South Wales.

When Right-wing governments were in power, men

were 17 per cent more likely

and women 40 per cent more likely to commit

suicide.

 

They report that rates were highest whenever Right

wing governments held

power both at federal and state levels.

 

Both studies reached their conclusions after

taking into account other

factors that affect suicide rates, such as

economic slumps, wartime, and

even a surge of suicides among women in the 1960s

when sedatives became

widely available.

 

 

" You've never had it so good "

 

 

But the same trend always emerged, even at times

of economic boom such as

the " you've-never-had-it-so-good " years

when Harold MacMillan led the UK's

Tory government between 1957 and 1963.

 

During that time, annual suicides peaked at 137

per million population. Shaw

points out that rates were almost as high in the

1930s (135 per million)

when Labour's Ramsay McDonald headed a coalition,

but she believes the

primary reason then was the century's worst

economic slump.

 

 

 

The lowest rate was 85 per million, during the

Liberal government of David

Lloyd George between 1916 and 1920. Now, under

Tony Blair, it is back to the

non-Conservative average of 103, down from 121 during

Margaret Thatcher's

first term in the early 1980s.

 

Shaw admits that attempts to connect the

differences to ideologies are pure

speculation. " But I'd be very interested to

see if suicide rates are higher

wherever there's a Right-wing government, "

she says. " I'd be particularly

interested to see if the relationship holds in the

US. "

 

A study published in July 2001 found that US

Republicans are almost three

times more likely to have nightmares than

Democrats. But a Republican

spokesman told New Scientist at the time: " If

we are, it's because we're

left cleaning up the mess left by eight years of

Bill Clinton. We sleep

better now Bush is in the White House. "

 

Journal reference: Journal of Epidemiology and

Community Health. (vol 56, p

723, p 766)

 

 

Andy Coghlan

 

 

 

PACKET TRACKING

Fast TCP promises super-quick movie

downloads

 

 

CANCER HALTED

Tweaking a protein that makes cells sticky

could control cancer

 

 

LAST WORD

Why is the ratio of men to women roughly

equal?

 

 

All the best science stories from the web

 

Holographic keypad that floats in midair

New York Times (free registration required)

 

South African AIDS epidemic in 'death phase'

CNN

 

Protection needed for 'marine Serengetis'

BBC

 

Amazon founder wants to launch space programme

The Independent, UK

 

Robot 'guard dog' protects Wi-Fi setups

ZDNet

 

Athletes take insulin in order to bulk up

Globe and Mail, Canada

 

Related Stories

 

 

Semen acts as an anti-depressant

26 June 2002

 

Depression genes differ in men and women

28 March 2002

 

Bad dreams haunt right-wingers

11 July 2001

 

 

 

Breast boost

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999779

 

19:00 23 May 01

 

 

Silicone breast implants could soon be

unnecessary, claim researchers in

Australia. They say their work will make it

possible for women to grow their

own.

 

Tissue engineer Kevin Cronin of the Bernard

O'Brien Institute of

Microsurgery in Melbourne told delegates at a

recent meeting of the Royal

Australasian College of Surgeons that he has

successfully grown breast and

fat tissue in rats, mice and rabbits. If the

technique works in people, it

could be used for cosmetic surgery or breast

reconstruction after

mastectomy.

 

Rather than growing the patient's tissue in the

lab and then transplanting

it back into the body, as has been done in animal

studies in the past,

Cronin grows the tissue on site.

 

A " chamber " containing a scaffold is

implanted into the area where new

tissue is needed. Cells from surrounding tissue

then migrate into the

chamber and form a three-dimensional blob of

tissue, in what Cronin calls a

" wound-healing " response. Over time, the

scaffold disintegrates.

 

 

 

Secret chamber

 

 

 

The key to the technique's success, says Cronin,

is a " vascular loop " in the

chamber that generates new blood vessels to supply

the growing tissue. But

he won't reveal details about how it works or what

it is made of until a

patent has been granted.

 

Cronin has already grown fat and breast tissues in

female mice by implanting

the chamber into their groin fat pad. This area is

on the animals' " milk

line " , where the cells are pre-programmed to

form breast and fat tissue.

 

Growing human breasts would involve a similar

technique. Immune rejection

wouldn't be a problem, but Cronin's mice did

occasionally develop infections

around the implanted chambers.

 

 

 

Disappearing fat

 

 

 

Dai Davis, a plastic surgeon from Stanford

Hospital in London, says

supplying blood to the new tissue will be difficult.

" We can move fat around

[during breast enlargements], but we can't always

vascularise it... it

calcifies or just disappears altogether, " he

says.

 

He also points out that there could be cancer

risks. " If you are using cells

from a woman who has had breast cancer, how do you

know that the new tissue

is not also going to turn into a cancer? "

 

Tissue engineer Julia Polak from Imperial College

School of Medicine in

London agrees. " In the case of someone who

has already had breast cancer, it

would be difficult to ensure that the cells used

to regenerate the breast

tissue did not also contain the cancer-causing

genetic machinery, " she

warns.

 

 

 

Hard to control

 

 

 

But she says the technique does have potential.

" It is certainly exciting.

It is the way tissue engineering should be going -

getting the body to

regenerate itself rather than trying to grow

complex body parts in a 'test

tube'. "

 

Cronin predicts that financial backing to develop

his new technology will

centre on cosmetic surgery applications.

 

" There is an obvious spin-off into breast

augmentation and facial aesthetic

surgery, " he says.

 

But he does admit the end result could be hard to

control. " We were just so

happy at getting the desired tissue to grow at all

that we haven't even got

around to working out how to control issues such

as size and shape, " he

says.

 

 

Marina Murphy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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