Butt Implants Are Even Riskier Than You Think

Today's culture reveres a shapely behind more than any other time in recent history. The trend has undoubtedly been perpetuated (and perhaps even originates from) figures like Kim Kardashian flaunting a large backside paired with an impossibly small waist. Although Kardashian insists her rear is 100 percent real — and even had it x-rayed in 2011 to prove it — butt implants have become an increasingly popular procedure in an effort to obtain a Kardashian-like figure. In fact, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) named 2015 "the year of the rear," reporting that butt implants were the fastest growing type of cosmetic surgery. But despite their popularity, evidence shows that the procedure is incredibly risky. 

Healthline reports that butt implant surgery patients have a 95 percent satisfaction rate, but this does not mean that there are not risks involved. The ASPS warns of risks like bleeding, infection, and poor wound healing, and there can be far more serious outcomes. Health Digest recently spoke with Dr. Elliot Hirsch, Chief of Plastic Surgery at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center, who expressed many concerns regarding these butt augmentations, including implants.

Dr. Elliot Hirsch tells Health Digest that textured butt plants can "possibly lead to anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL)," something Columbia University's Irving Medical Center calls a "rare, deadly lymphoma." Textured breast implants were recalled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this very reason. In 2019, NBC News reported that in the U.S., at least 457 women have been diagnosed with breast implant-associated ALCL, with more than 600 cases worldwide. Nine women in the U.S. have died as a result.

A Brazilian butt lift might seem like a safer option, as the procedure involves taking fat from other areas of the body and re-implanting it into the butt, but Dr, Hirsch warms against this, as well. "[The] Brazilian butt lift has the highest risk of death out of all plastic surgery procedures," he says, with mortality rates "reported as high as 1:3000." He explains that the risk comes from fat potentially entering blood vessels during the injections. Smaller Brazilian butt lifts, he notes, "place the fat more above the muscle," which poses less risk. 

Clearly, these procedures should not be taken lightly. There is some level of risk involved in any surgery, but if doctors are warning so heavily against certain ones, it is definitely worth pausing to think about.