What is the silicone used for breast augmentation like? Does it have any impact on human health?

Silicone breast augmentation is a popular breast augmentation method for beauty-conscious women in recent years. However, many women do not know whether the silicone used for breast augmentation is safe or not. In fact, there is no clear statement on whether the silicone used for breast augmentation is good or not. Let's take a closer look at it!

According to a new report from Brown University, there is no conclusive evidence that silicone breast implants are truly harmless.

A lot of time and money has been spent trying to figure out whether silicone breast implants are safe. However, according to a new report from Brown University, there is no conclusive evidence that silicone breast implants are truly harmless.

Of course, the safety of silicone breast augmentation has caused endless controversy. In the United States, silicone breast augmentation was discontinued for 14 years and did not return to the market until 2006. Although the discontinuation has attracted considerable research, the jury is still out on whether silicone implants cause health problems — such as cancer and connective tissue disorders.

Therefore, a team of scientists reviewed 32 relevant studies to compare the health of women who did and did not undergo silicone breast augmentation. The team was led by Dr. Ethan Balk, an assistant professor in Brown's Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice.

Health effects undecided

They found that none of the 32 studies provided enough data to explain the potential health effects of silicone breast implants.

"Although numerous studies have reported risk of disease, there is insufficient evidence to link breast implants to any health condition," the team wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "There were no more than two sufficiently rigorous studies with consistent estimates of association for any health condition, and possible confounding factors were not adequately accounted for."

One of the main difficulties, Balk explained, is that there are fundamental differences between women who have silicone breast implants (for breast augmentation, mastectomy recovery or other reasons) and those who don't, making direct comparisons difficult.

"Some differences were easy to measure, like women who had breast augmentation were more likely to smoke, be thinner, and have fair skin," Balk explained in a statement. "But others were harder to quantify, like they were more likely to have been teased about their looks."

If these studies had taken factors other than silicone breast implants into account, the differences between the two groups of women might have been explained. But many studies don't do that, which means that the trends they find (such as cancer rates) may be due to other reasons, such as smoking. Balk believes that some studies may regain significance if they are reanalyzed with more confounding factors.

"This study will hopefully provide guidance to future researchers to improve the analysis of currently available data and future data," he said.