Michelangelo Likely Had Arthritis, Medical Experts Say

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Michelangelo, the renowned painter and sculptor, suffered from arthritis in his hands, but it’s likely that his intense work helped him keep using his hands until he died, a team of doctors says.

Chiseling and hammering probably accelerated the arthritis, the experts said. But, that activity also prolonged his ability to use his hands.

The doctors examined three portraits of Michelangelo when he was between the ages of 60 and 65. All three paintings show that the small joints of his left hand have arthritis-related deformity. Earlier paintings show no such signs, the doctors said.

Their conclusions were reported online Feb. 2 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

“It is clear from the literature that Michelangelo was afflicted by an illness involving his joints. In the past, this has been attributed to gout, but our analysis shows this can be dismissed,” lead author Dr. Davide Lazzeri, a specialist in plastic reconstructive and aesthetic surgery at the Villa Salaria Clinic in Rome, said in a journal news release.

There are no signs of inflammation in Michelangelo’s hands, Lazzeri noted. There’s also no evidence of the small lumps of uric acid crystals that can form under the skin of people with gout, he explained.

Letters written by Michelangelo reveal that his hand symptoms developed later in life. By 1552, he had great discomfort when writing. Eventually, he could no longer write and only signed his letters, the team said.

Even so, he continued to create masterpieces and was still hammering up to six days before he died in 1564. That was just three weeks before his 89th birthday, they noted.

“The diagnosis of osteoarthritis offers one plausible explanation for Michelangelo’s loss of dexterity in old age and emphasizes his triumph over infirmity as he persisted in his work until his last days. Indeed, the continuous and intense work could have helped Michelangelo to keep the use of his hands for as long as possible,” Lazzeri said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about arthritis.

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The New Series You’ll Want to Binge Watch While Doing Lunges

Nike sprinted into new territory this week with the launch of an original eight-episode web series titled Margot vs Lily.

Staring Samantha Marie Ware and Brigette Lundy-Pain, the show is about two twenty-something sisters—one, a gym junkie who lacks social skills (Lily), and the other, a social butterfly who is far from athletic (Margot). The narrative follows a bet between them in which Margot must start a fitness channel and amass 1,000 followers before Lily (who has 900,000 YouTube subscribers) befriends three real-life pals.

RELATED: 25 Genius Ways Fitness Trainers Stay Motivated to Exercise

Directed by Tricia Brock (Girls, Mr. Robot, Silicon Valley, and Mozart in the Jungle) and executive-produced by Emmy-nominated Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (American Horror Story: Coven), Margot vs Lily is part of Nike’s uber popular women’s campaign #BetterForIt, which is all about consistently pushing yourself to be your absolute best. Not to mention, the series is a pretty ingenious way to inspire a generation of young women (hello, millennials) to incorporate exercise into their lives…and perhaps scoop up some killer Nike threads in the process.

Check out the first episode below to watch these two get way out of their comfort zones, and determine if you’re Team Margot or Team Lily. Then tune in on Mondays to see exactly how this sibling rivalry unfolds.

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Diabetes Drug May Not Help Obese Women Have Normal-Weight Babies

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Giving the diabetes drug metformin to obese pregnant women may not help their newborns come into the world at a healthier weight, a new trial finds.

The study, reported Feb. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine, adds to evidence that metformin does not curb obese women’s risk of having an abnormally large newborn.

On the other hand, the British researchers found the drug did help control a woman’s own weight gain during pregnancy. And it may slash the risk of a potentially dangerous complication called preeclampsia.

“Those findings bring to light some potential benefits of metformin for these women,” said Dr. Jerrie Refuerzo, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Health McGovern Medical School, in Houston.

For now, diet and exercise will remain the mainstay of managing obesity during pregnancy, according to Refuerzo, who was not involved in the study.

But she said researchers should keep looking at a possible role for metformin.

Metformin is an oral drug used to control type 2 diabetes, which causes chronically high levels of blood sugar and insulin — a hormone that regulates blood sugar.

Metformin is also sometimes given to women who develop pregnancy-related diabetes. One of the main concerns with pregnancy-related diabetes is that the fetus will grow large enough to complicate childbirth or require a cesarean section delivery.

Those newborns are also at increased risk of potentially dangerous blood-sugar lows after delivery, according the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

But obese moms-to-be often have large newborns, even if they do not have diabetes. And that might be because their blood sugar and insulin are elevated — but not high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes, explained Dr. Hassan Shehata, the senior researcher on the new study. He is an obstetrician-gynecologist at Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals, in London.

So going into the trial, Shehata’s team hoped that metformin would lower obese moms’ odds of having a large baby. It didn’t turn out that way.

The trial, which was funded by the Fetal Medicine Foundation, included 450 British women who were between their 12th and 18th weeks of pregnancy. All were severely obese — with a body mass index topping 35. Half were randomly assigned to take a 3-gram dose of metformin every day; the other half received placebo tablets.

Among the women given metformin, almost 17 percent had a “large for gestational age” baby. That compared with just over 15 percent of women who were given the placebo.

“Large for gestational age” means that the baby’s birth weight is at least in the 90th percentile.

Still, Shehata said, metformin did curb women’s weight gain: They typically gained nearly 4 pounds less than placebo users did. (Experts recommend that obese women gain a limited amount during pregnancy — 11 to 20 pounds.)

Women on metformin also had a substantially lower risk of preeclampsia — with 3 percent developing it, versus 11 percent of placebo users.

Preeclampsia, which occurs after the 20th week of pregnancy, is marked by high blood pressure and other signs that a woman’s organs — such as the kidneys and liver — are not functioning properly. It can cause preterm delivery and low birth weight, and can raise a woman’s risk of seizures and coma.

“Preeclampsia is one of the important pregnancy complications that we’ve been trying to reduce for decades, with variable success,” said Shehata.

He cautioned that this study was not actually “powered” to prove that metformin cuts preeclampsia risk — meaning there were not enough women in the trial to tell whether the benefit was real or due to chance.

But he said his team hopes to run a future study aimed at answering that question.

According to Refuerzo, the drug’s effects on women’s weight and preeclampsia risk were “impressive” in light of another recent trial. That study, published last year, suggested metformin had no benefits for women who were obese but diabetes-free.

In this latest study, Refuerzo said, women were given a higher metformin dose and they were more likely to stick with the medication regimen.

Metformin can have side effects that make it difficult to take, Refuerzo pointed out. Stomach pain, nausea and vomiting are among the most common.

But, Shehata said, the drug has long been used for pregnancy-related diabetes, and there is no evidence it carries a risk of birth defects.

It’s estimated that 20 percent of pregnant women in the United Kingdom are obese, Shehata noted. In the United States, that figure is around one-third.

More information

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has more on obesity and pregnancy.

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Legionnaires’ Disease Can Transmit Person-to-Person, Case Suggests

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Legionnaires’ disease — the respiratory illness that plagued New York City in an outbreak last summer — is typically thought to develop when people breathe in contaminated mist or water droplets.

However, a case that occurred in the fall of 2014 in Portugal suggests that the often deadly bacterial infection may, in rare cases, pass person-to-person.

One expert in the United States urged caution in interpreting the findings, however.

“While this case report sheds new light on a potential concern for person-to-person transmission for Legionnaires’ disease, it’s important to realize that the primary mode of transmission continues to be via inhalation of infected aerosols from cooling towers associated with large-scale air conditioning and ventilation units,” said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Legionnaires’ disease was first seen among 2,000 American Legionnaires attending a convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1976, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak was linked to air conditioner cooling towers in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. That outbreak sickened 221 people, and killed 34 of them.

Last summer, 124 people were sickened and 12 people died in an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease tied to contaminated cooling towers at a hotel in New York City’s South Bronx.

Those cases were not thought to involve person-to-person transmission.

However, Portuguese researchers reporting Feb. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine believe they have identified such a case.

According to a team led by Dr. Ana Correia, of the Northern Regional Health Administration in Porto, a 48-year-old male maintenance worker contracted an infection with the Legionnaires’ bacterium after working at a contaminated cooling tower complex near Lisbon.

He returned to the home he shared with his 74-year-old mother in Porto, nearly 190 miles away, and began to show signs of illness about three days later.

His mother nursed the ailing man — who was later transferred to a hospital — and about two weeks later, she too became ill.

Laboratory testing confirmed that the mother’s illness was caused by the same strain of Legionnaires’ bacterium that had infected her son.

Both the mother and son died of the illness. Since mother and son had the identical strain of Legionnaires’ bacterium, and the mother had never visited the infected site near Lisbon, “we suspect that person-to-person transmission probably occurred” in this case, Correia’s team concluded.

Dr. Leonard Krilov is chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He agreed that this is the “first case of documented person-to-person” transmission of Legionnaires’ disease — probably due to the long and sustained closeness between mother and son as she cared for him at home.

But Glatter stressed this case is likely very rare, and should not raise alarm bells. Instead, he said, “what is apparent to me is the importance of conducting future high-quality epidemiologic studies to better understand and determine actual and reported risks of person-to-person transmission for Legionnaires’ disease.”

In the meantime, Glatter said, the best way to curb outbreaks should be “the meticulous disinfection of cooling towers,” since they are the source of the vast majority of infections.

More information

Find out more about Legionnaires’ disease at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Should Tackling Be Banned From Youth Football?

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Tackling should be eliminated from youth football due to the risks that collisions and head injuries pose to young athletes, a researcher argues in the Feb. 4 New England Journal of Medicine.

A recent evidence review conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that tackling is “associated with pretty much every negative outcome” in youth football, including concussions and severe injuries, said researcher Kathleen Bachynski. She is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

Despite this evidence, an AAP policy statement issued in the November 2015 Pediatrics didn’t recommend that tackling be eliminated from youth football.

Instead, the AAP’s Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness said coaches and officials should teach safe tackling techniques to kids, and make sure that rules against illegal tackling are enforced.

“I felt given the risk they described, they should have made some stronger recommendations,” Bachynski said. “Given the evidence, we should consider a more fundamental change in the way football is played, that might include removing tackling.”

The National Football League’s ongoing concussion crisis has raised concerns at all levels of football about the effects of head injuries on players. Autopsies have shown that a number of prominent NFL players, including “Iron Mike” Webster and Steve Baul “Junior” Seau, suffered brain damage as a result of the repeated hits they took during play.

Many parents are concerned that not enough is being done to protect youth football players from head injuries, according to a recent HealthDay/Harris Poll.

In the poll, four out of five people said that aggressive tackles that can lead to head injuries should be restricted in youth football.

That’s the stance taken by the AAP, which recommended in its statement that “head-up” tackling be required in youth games to limit the risk of head-to-head collisions, which often result in concussions.

The AAP policy statement recognized that “removing tackling from football altogether would likely lead to a decrease in the incidence of overall injuries, severe injuries, catastrophic injuries and concussions” in youth players.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes, however, that the removal of tackling from football would lead to a fundamental change in the way the game is played,” the statement continued. “Participants in football must decide whether the potential health risks of sustaining these injuries are outweighed by the recreational benefits associated with proper tackling.”

Dr. Cynthia LaBella, chairperson of the AAP Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, said the committee took its stand following a “data-driven” review that balanced the risks of youth tackle football versus the benefits.

“We didn’t find the data supported a ban on tackling,” said LaBella, medical director of the Institute for Sports Medicine at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “Our statement recommends that officials and coaches must enforce the rules of the game, including proper tackling techniques, and every effort should be made to reduce blows to the head.”

The AAP review found that tackling is the most common activity associated with injuries in youth football, but LaBella said injuries are not limited to football alone.

“Right now football is in the spotlight, but it is important to remember that overall injury rates in youth football are similar to other youth sports, such as baseball and soccer, and that concussions occur in all sports,” LaBella said. “In my clinic, I probably see just as many if not more female soccer players with head injuries as football players with head injuries.”

In her article, Bachynski stated that the academy took a much stronger stand against youth tackle football in the 1950s, when a panel recommended that body-contact sports such as tackle football be excluded from athletic programs for kids 12 or younger.

But as football grew in popularity, the risks of injury came to be overshadowed by the potential benefits of team sports, she wrote.

The benefits of youth football were one of the considerations that the AAP council weighed in crafting the policy statement, LaBella said.

“Organized sports have so many benefits for kids,” she said. “One of the risks of all organized sports is injury. However, for most kids and teens, the benefits of youth sports outweigh the risk of injury.”

The academy also recommended expanding the availability of non-tackling football leagues for young athletes. Bachynski believes those types of leagues should be the only options available.

“I understand how beloved football is in many communities, but it would be better to participate in flag or touch football,” Bachynski said. “I think flag or touch football is the way to enjoy the fun of football without the physical contact and the risk of head injuries. I would recommend against tackle football.”

LaBella said the AAP likely will review its policy statement on youth tackle football in three years, which is about the same interval at which it reviews any of its positions.

“Usually it takes that long for a significant amount of new data to be produced that would warrant making changes to the policy statement,” LaBella said.

More information

For more about concussion, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Zika Virus Spreads in Texas Through Sex: Dallas Health Officials

Photo: Getty Imagesn

Health officials have confirmed what appears to be the first case of the mosquito-borne Zika virus spreading through sex within the continental U.S.

A patient in Dallas became infected after having sex with a person who had returned from Venezuela, one of the dozens of countries stricken with the Zika virus, according to the Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS). The illness has been linked to brain damage in newborns.

“Now that we know Zika virus can be transmitted through sex, this increases our awareness campaign in educating the public about protecting themselves and others,” DCHHS director Zachary Thompson said in a statement. The DCHHS said it received confirmation of the infection from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

It’s the first Zika virus case acquired through sexual transmission in Dallas this year, the DCHHS said. The World Health Organization on Monday declared the cluster of birth defects linked to of Zika an international public-health emergency. There is no vaccine for the virus, which has quickly spread throughout the Americas, infecting people in more than 20 countries. WHO officials said the total number of cases could hit 4 million by the end of the year.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Young Black, Hispanic Hodgkin Lymphoma Patients Face Worse Outcomes: Study

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Hodgkin lymphoma is a form of cancer that starts in white blood cells is often curable. But, poor black and Hispanic young people are less likely to survive the disease than their white peers, a new study shows.

“This study identifies vulnerable subgroups of young Hodgkin lymphoma patients at higher risk of dying from their disease, and points to disparities in treatment delivery and follow-up care as likely contributing factors,” said study author Theresa Keegan. She is an associate professor in the division of hematology and oncology at the University of California, Davis.

“Identifying and reducing barriers to recommended treatment and follow-up care is critical to improving survival for all patients,” Keegan said in a university news release. She conducted the research while at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California.

For the study, researchers followed more than 9,300 patients between the ages of 15 and 39 who were diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma between 1988 and 2011. They examined the effects that certain characteristics had on the patients’ survival, including race, ethnicity, neighborhood socioeconomic status, the type of treatments they received, and whether or not they developed any other cancers.

Survival rates improved over time, but obvious disparities persisted, according to the study published recently in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Regardless of how far their disease had progressed, black people were 68 percent more likely to die from Hodgkin lymphoma than white people, the study found.

Meanwhile, Hispanics diagnosed with more advanced stage cancer were 58 percent more likely to die than white people diagnosed when their disease was at a similar stage, the researchers said.

Black and Hispanic teens and young adults with Hodgkin lymphoma living in poor neighborhoods and those with public or no insurance were more likely to be treated with just chemotherapy and not undergo radiation, the researchers said.

The young people who were uninsured or had public health insurance were twice as likely to die from the disease — even if their disease was detected early, the study found.

“Hodgkin lymphoma, a common cancer in adolescents and young adults, has been one of the great success stories in oncology,” said study senior author Dr. Sally Glaser. She is director of the Greater Bay Area Cancer Registry at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California.

“This paper is important in identifying patient groups who are not benefiting from these important and well-established medical opportunities,” Glaser added.

The researchers said their findings highlight the fact that young minority cancer patients are more often uninsured and more likely to lack access to medical care after they are diagnosed.

Concerns about out-of-pocket medical costs, lost wages, child care and transportation could prevent young patients from receiving the care they need, the researchers added.

“Are they getting the surveillance to make sure that any complications or late effects of treatment are caught early? We need to understand the continuity of health insurance over time and other barriers to care,” Glaser said.

More information

The American Cancer Society provides more information on Hodgkin lymphoma.

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Cell Treatment Boosted Mice’s Life Span by a Third

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Mice lived more than one-third longer than normal after scientists eliminated a certain type of cell from their bodies, according to a new study.

The finding might one day lead to ways to reduce age-related health problems in people, the researchers said, although animal studies often fail to produce similar results in humans.

Clearing out these senescent cells — cells that no longer divide and accumulate with age — also delayed tumor formation in the mice and preserved tissue and organ function, the researchers found.

“Cellular senescence is a biological mechanism that functions as an ’emergency brake’ used by damaged cells to stop dividing,” said study senior author Jan van Deursen, chair of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“While halting cell division of these cells is important for cancer prevention, it has been theorized that once the ’emergency brake’ has been pulled, these cells are no longer necessary,” he said in a Mayo news release.

The immune system regularly clears out senescent cells, but this process becomes less effective as people age. Senescent cells produce chemicals that damage nearby cells and cause chronic inflammation, which is linked with frailty and age-related diseases, the researchers explained.

The study investigators used a drug to eliminate senescent cells in normal mice and found that their life spans were extended by 17 percent to 35 percent. The animals also looked healthier, had less inflammation in fat, muscle and kidney tissue, and suffered no harmful effects.

“Senescent cells that accumulate with aging are largely bad, do bad things to your organs and tissues, and therefore shorten your life but also the healthy phase of your life,” van Deursen said.

“And since you can eliminate the cells without negative side effects, it seems like therapies that will mimic our findings — or our genetic model that we used to eliminate the cells — like drugs or other compounds that can eliminate senescent cells would be useful for therapies against age-related disabilities or diseases or conditions,” he said.

The study was published Feb. 3 in the journal Nature.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging offers healthy aging resources.

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Head Injuries Tied to Buildup of Alzheimer’s Plaques, Small Study Finds

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Suffering a traumatic brain injury may lead to a buildup of Alzheimer’s-type plaques in the brain, including in regions not typically affected by such plaques, a small new study suggests.

Building on previous research indicating traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be a major risk factor for dementia, researchers found that moderate to severe head injuries led to an accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brains of nine middle-aged study participants over months or years.

A buildup of amyloid plaques in the spaces between nerve cells in the brain is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

“More and more evidence suggests brain trauma can trigger long-term processes that may be harmful, suggesting the window for treatment after a head injury may be much greater than previously thought,” said study author David Sharp. He is a National Institute for Health Research professor at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.

“Additional research needs to be done to understand these long-term processes, such as amyloid plaque deposition and persistent brain inflammation, and of course to develop treatments that target these processes,” he added.

The study is published online Feb. 3 in the journal Neurology.

Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 5 million people in the United States, and in 2015, as many as 700,000 deaths will occur in people with the condition, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

The rate of traumatic brain injury-related emergency department visits soared by 70 percent over the last decade in the United States, the authors of an accompanying journal editorial said. In 2010, 2.5 million emergency visits were due to traumatic brain injury, according to background information in the editorial. In addition, between 3 million and 5 million Americans are estimated to live with a TBI-related disability, said the editorialists, Ansgar Furst of Stanford University and Erin Bigler of Brigham Young University.

Sharp and his team included 28 participants in the study. Nine had a past traumatic brain injury, nine were healthy and 10 had Alzheimer’s disease. The mean age of those with traumatic brain injury was 44 years. The mean age in the other groups was about 20 years older, the study said. The nine with traumatic brain injury experienced a single brain injury between 11 months and up to 17 years before the start of the research.

All of the study volunteers had MRI and PET brain imaging scans for the study. Those with a traumatic brain injury also had MRI scans using so-called diffusion tensor imaging to detect damage to brain cells that occurs after TBI. PET scans used a marker that detects plaques in the brain.

Participants with brain injuries and those with Alzheimer’s had amyloid plaques in an area of the brain known as the posterior cingulate cortex. This area is usually affected early in Alzheimer’s disease. But, only those with traumatic brain injury also had amyloid plaques in the cerebellum, a region in the back of the brain with an important role in motor control, the findings showed.

The researchers also learned that amyloid plaques were more plentiful in study participants with more damage to the brain’s white matter, which is composed of nerve fibers.

“We were surprised to find amyloid plaques in the cerebellum, an area of the brain not usually affected by Alzheimer’s disease,” Sharp said. “This suggests the processes which produce amyloid in brain injury and Alzheimer’s are not the same.”

An animal study released in January complemented the new human findings. Researchers from University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston learned that a toxic form of protein known as tau that increases after a traumatic brain injury may contribute to the development of dementia symptoms.

Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach for the Alzheimer’s Association, said that although the new study is small, “it adds a little to our knowledge about TBI … because there appears to be a connection. It’s not clear whether it’s due to Alzheimer’s pathology, although this paper seems to point in that direction.”

Fargo, who wasn’t involved in the new research, agreed with Sharp that more research on the topic is necessary before any conclusions can be drawn.

“I think we need a larger study with a more diverse group of people to see if this holds up over time in larger groups of people, and then we’d want to see what we can do to start slowing this [amyloid buildup] down,” Fargo said.

While brain damage from concussions and other mild head injuries are a growing public health concern, Sharp said, it’s difficult to translate his findings into any recommendations about whether people should avoid contact sports and other scenarios where concussions are frequent.

“A single severe head injury is not the same as many concussions, so extrapolating from our study is difficult,” he said. “However, they do have pathological similarities … and other studies have linked repetitive mild head injuries to the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition which has pathological features that include amyloid plaques.”

CTE has recently received a lot of attention in the news. Researchers have linked the disease to head injuries sustained while playing football and subsequent brain damage observed decades later in retired National Football League players. CTE has been found in the brains of 90 of 94 former NFL players examined at Boston University. The disease can be diagnosed only after death.

More information

Learn more about amyloid plaques at the U.S. National Institute on Aging.

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No, Ariel Winter Will Not Be Covering Up Her Plastic Surgery Scars

Photo: Getty Images

When Ariel Winter stepped out at the 2016 SAG Awards on January 30, she got some unnecessary Twitter hate for not covering up her plastic surgery scars.

RELATED: Sarah Hyland Speaks Out about Ariel Winter’s Breast Reduction

The 18-year-old revealed that she underwent breast reduction surgery this past summer, going from a 32F to a 34D. Not only has she been open and honest about having procedure, but she’s not afraid to show off her battle wounds either. And more power to her!

Here’s how she responded to the criticism during the SAG Awards:

RELATED: Ariel Winter Slams Body Shamers

Guys there is a reason I didn't make an effort to cover up my scars! They are part of me and I'm not ashamed of them at all. :)

— Ariel Winter (@arielwinter1) January 31, 2016

In an interview with PEOPLE, she explained why she decided to open up about her decision to have plastic surgery.

“Being a 5-ft.-tall girl and having extremely large breasts is really ostracizing and excruciatingly painful,” she said. “It’s important to talk about it because there are young girls suffering like I did, but there shouldn’t be a stigma about it.”

RELATED: Ariel Winter Channels Kylie Jenner, Blows Our Minds

Winter isn’t the only celebrity to wear her scars loud and proud. Kylie Jenner has a massive scar on her leg that she never bothers covering up, Tina Fey has one right on her face, and Padma Lakshmi has a scar down her arm, just to name a few. Whatever the cause or story behind our scars, they make us who we are—and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com. 

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