According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation is the most popular form of cosmetic surgery in the country. Some women choose to get breast implants for cosmetic reasons, while others use them to rebuild after undergoing mastectomies for breast cancer. In 2018, 310,000 breast augmentations were performed, which is a 4% increase from 2017. However, it comes with many risks that women night not be aware of.
Breast implants aren't permanent and need to be removed or replaced every eight to ten years, yet the FDA says 20% of women have to get their implants removed sooner because of complications. Some complications can include severe muscle and joint pain, scarring, weakness, cognitive difficulties, and rupture. There's even a term for it – "breast implant illness." As bad as those symptoms sound, they can also be worse; 573 people developed a rare form of blood cancer because of their implants, and 33 people have died.
Now, the FDA is issuing a boxed warning for breast implants, the most serious type of warning, because most women are not "fully informed of the risks." Doctors will be required to give their patients the warning before they undergo surgery. The FDA is also considering a "decision checklist" for doctors to go over with their patients, outlining the risks of breast implants and offering other options.
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It's a sign that women are being taken seriously. Last March, many patients testified at an advisory panel meeting, saying they didn't know about the risks beforehand. More than 70,000 women signed a petition demanding the FDA require a checklist before breast augmentation. Finally, the FDA is listening, saying that this is "a distinct opportunity to do more to protect women who are considering implants."
Breast implants have been around since the 1960s, but they have a rocky history. Several years ago, a link between breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma was found. Additional studies have found there are higher rates of autoimmune disease with women who have breast implants. In July, the FDA recalled textured breast implants from Allergan because of the increased risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma. The risk of developing cancer was six times higher than with other brands of breast implants.
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Currently, the box warning is in "draft guidance," which means that it is up for public commentary and review. "Taken as a whole we believe this draft guidance, when final, will result in better labeling for breast implants that will ultimately help patients better understand breast implant benefits and risks, which is a critical piece in making health care decisions that fit patients' needs and lifestyle," the FDA said in a statement.
It's great that the FDA is finally taking steps to inform women of the risks associated with the surgery. It could be easy to brush aside women who choose to have breast augmentation, dismissing them as "vain." But the complications can be serious. Women must be taken seriously as well.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.