Some women are just not happy with their breast size that they decide to get some implants to make them feel better about themselves.
However a new study suggests that women who go under the knife for breast augmentation are more likely to commit suicide, as reported by Reuters.
In the new study, which appeared in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, researchers tracked over 3,000 Swedish women who had breast implants for 19 years in average.
Of the more than 3,000 research subjects, 24 of them had killed themselves during the study period, which is triple the number expected from that population.
The suicidal tendencies are not even apparent until a decade following the breast enlargement surgery.
Not only that, researchers also found that those who got breast implants have a higher risk of dying from drug or alcohol abuse.
According to the researchers, led by Loren Lipworth from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Tennessee, the suicidal tendencies may be due to the fact that women who go through plastic surgeries already have mental health problems to begin with, like suffering from low self-esteem or body dysmorphic disorder.
"I think we don't even know how big of a problem it is because we cannot even pinpoint what proportion of women have psychiatric disorders," Lipworth told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The study also didn't find an increased risk of death from breast cancer. However, women who get implants face an increased risk of death due to lung cancer and respiratory illnesses, and according to researchers this may be because these women tend to smoke more.
Based on the annual report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), 15.6 million cosmetic surgeries are performed in the U.S. in 2014, with breast augmentation taking the number 1 spot on top five cosmetic surgery procedures. Nose reshaping and liposuction placed second and third, respectively.
