First, it was your fat friends...now, it's your fake boobs that are killing you

...and the hits just keep coming...

Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2007/08/09/hscout607188.html

reports a study in the Annals of Plastic Surgery that found that the number of deaths from suicide were three times higher for women with implants. The same study reported that the number of deaths related to substance abuse, lung cancer, and respiratory disease was also higher.

If anyone wants a pdf of the original study. Let me know.

The study concludes that "thus, screening for preimplant psychiatric morbidity and postimplant monitoring may be warranted"

This is what happens when a bunch of plastic surgeons get their hands on statistics software. Doctors, put down your laptops, pick up those scapels, and get back in the operating room!

Let's leave our silicon boobs for a moment and ponder what other alarmist studies we could do...

How about these?

1. If we looked at the death rate of Americans in Iraq, we would probably find that a large number of them have very short hair, sunglasses, and poor sartorial taste--big funny hats and clothes with big blotchy prints. Therefore, barbers should consider counseling everyone who gets a crewcut, or buys sunglasses...and perhaps young Americans in Iraq should consider something a bit more Saville Row...

or...

2. If we look at inner city crime stats, I'll bet guys who listen to hip hop, and wear their caps wrong have a much higher chance of getting killed in drug-related incidents than those who don't. We should therefore advise our dealers to straighten their caps and start listening to more John Denver and Anne Murray...

Ah, but then the suicide rates would probably go up (sorry Canadians...but seriously, you guys need more edge)

Just like the "fat friends" study, these guys are not quite coming out and saying that fake boobs are the culprit. They dance around the point, but the implication of causality is lurking somewhere just under the surface the whole time.

The study doesn't report the statistical procedures used...I imagine they used some type of survival failure analysis...chi squares...whatever. It's post hoc correlational stuff that cannot be used to establish casaulity.

They should really be looking for underlying variables. This study should be in a journal of psychiatry...but a psych journal would probably be much more rigorous.

Besides, trying to identify some underlying variable would make this type of study pretty boring. Forbes would never write it up, and it probably wouldn't even get published in the first place. But, the underlying variables are probably the cause of suicides. Not many happy contented people commit suicide (or abuse drugs and alcohol). And, women who are happy with the way they look probably don't opt for breat augmentation surgery. Isn't there a chance that someone who is not happy about the way they look may be unhappy about other things. People who are unhappy about things or willing to risk a boob job may also have drug and alcohol dependencies.

Who knows, the boob jobs may actually be keeping lesser endowed women from considering suicide sooner.

Hmmm...I still want to do that Iraq study, "Sartorial indiscretion to blame for American deaths in Iraq" or, "Anne Murray saves lives..."

I'll wait til after I finish my dissertation.