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11 Celebrities Get Real About Plastic Surgery

Photo: Getty Images

In Hollywood, a place where the phrase “body of work” usually refers to more than a celeb’s IMDB page, plastic surgery is a booming business. While not all actresses are keen to talk about going under the knife (or laser, or needle), others have been outspoken about why they chose to, wish they hadn’t, never will—or just might in 10 years.

From boob jobs to Botox, here are 11 stars who’ve talked frankly about cosmetic procedures: the good, the bad, and the “I can’t seem to move my face…” kind.

No regrets

“I had my nose done when I was 16 years old. And I’ll be honest, it did change my life … [I]f there is something you want to fix that allows you to feel a little bit more confident, I support it. ”

—Jillian Michaels, People, May 2015

“I did change something: Four months ago, I got bigger boobs! I’d thought about it my entire life.”

—Iggy Azalia, Vogue, March 2015

For health reasons

“I didn’t do this because I believe in plastic surgery. I did this to help my health. I literally almost could not breathe out of the right side of my nose. I want my fans to know the truth. I’m not someone who is going to act like I had nothing done. I just want to be honest because my fans are everything to me.”

—Ashley Tisdale, People, December 2007

Been there, done that, BIG mistake. (Huge.)

“I went into the operating room a celebrity and came out anonymous. It was the nose job from hell. I’ll always be this once-famous actress nobody recognizes because of a nose job.”

—Jennifer Grey, The Daily Mirror, August 2012

“I tried the Botox one time and was permanently surprised for a couple months and it was not a cute look for me. My feeling is, I have three children who should know what emotion I’m feeling at the exact moment I’m feeling it. Like, that is critical.”

—Julia Roberts, Access Hollywood, March 2012

No way, José

“When I see it in people I meet, it’s like an interruption in communication with them. It’s like a flag in front of the view, and that, for an actor, is like wearing a veil—it’s not a good thing.”

—Meryl Streep, Vanity Fair, December 2009

“I say, don’t fight the rings on the trunk of a tree. Just keep counting ‘em. The idea of not looking like myself scares me. I just think a person’s character is what’s interesting.”

—Drew Barrymore, InStyle, January 2012

Never say never

“I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Though at this point, it’s a little hard to imagine. My mother never did anything to her face. And then, too, I look at my contemporaries. I see the very good work. I see the very bad work. I just don’t know if I want to mess with that. But, boy, I’m glad there’s such a thing as great lighting in movies and a little refreshing in photos.”

—Diane Keaton, Allure, May 2014

“When you see everybody around you doing it, you have those moments when you think, ‘To stay alive in this business, do I need to do the same thing?’ I won’t lie and tell you that those things don’t cross my mind, because somebody is always suggesting it to me. ‘You know if you just did a little bit of this and that, lift this up, then this would be a little bit better.’ It’s almost like crack that people are trying to push on you.”

—Halle Berry, YahooBeauty, February 2015

“I’ve probably tried everything. I would be scared to go under the knife, but you know, talk to me when I’m 50. I’ll try anything. Except I won’t do Botox again, because I looked crazy.”

—Gwyneth Paltrow, Harper’s Bazaar, April 2013

“Why not? I mean, not yet, but maybe [I’ll do] my under-eye bags in my 50s. We’ll see what I need, but I’m not saying no!”

—Sofia Vergara, Redbook, August 2014

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Less-Invasive Repair of Aortic Aneurysm Better in Short Term: Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Minimally invasive surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm appears to boost survival in the short term more than traditional surgery does, but that advantage diminishes over time, researchers report.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a bulging weak spot in the aorta, the large artery that takes blood away from the heart and toward the abdomen, pelvis and legs. If not fixed, it can burst unexpectedly and cause substantial bleeding that can be fatal. When detected before bursting, doctors can repair the weak spot with traditional surgery (“open repair”) or by inserting a device through a small opening to apply a patch on the aorta — called an endovascular repair.

About 5 percent of men and 1.5 percent of women over 60 may have an abdominal aortic aneurysm, especially those who smoke or have a family history of aneurysm, said study author Dr. Marc Schermerhorn, an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

However, most people don’t know they have it because there aren’t any warning signs, so it is typically discovered during an ultrasound or CT scan that is done for another reason, Schermerhorn said. Oftentimes, “they don’t know they have it until it ruptures,” he added.

In the study, endovascular repair beat open repair on several counts, the researchers said.

“We see a substantial early benefit to endovascular repair over open repair,” said Schermerhorn.

Endovascular repair has a lower risk of death around the time of surgery, lower complication rates and a shorter hospital stay, he explained.

“That survival benefit persists for at least three years,” Schermerhorn said. “However, the endovascular approach does have a higher rate of the need for a second procedure to maintain the repair.”

The open operation has more complications related to the surgery, including scar tissue causing obstruction of the bowel, Schermerhorn explained.

However, after eight years, the risk of a rupture was more than 5 percent for those who had the endovascular repair. “That raises a flag of caution,” Schermerhorn said. “I don’t think it’s enough to opt for an open repair, because there is a three-year period where survival is much better with an endovascular repair.”

Schermerhorn said that after either procedure patients need to have an annual evaluation of the repair so that any problems can be dealt with before complications occur.

The report was published July 23 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

To discover which procedure worked best, Schermerhorn and his colleagues collected data on nearly 40,000 Medicare patients who had had either open repair or endovascular repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. These repairs occurred from 2001 through 2008, and the patients were followed through 2009.

Overall, 1.6 percent of the patients who had endovascular repair died around the time of the procedure, compared with 5.2 percent of those who underwent open repair. The number of patients who died around the time of an endovascular procedure continued to decline from 2001 to 2008. In addition, more patients opted for endovascular repair over that period, the researchers found.

In terms of survival, more patients who had endovascular repair lived during the three years after the procedure than those who had open repair. After three years, the rate of survival was similar for both, the researchers reported.

However, after three years, complications related to the aneurysm were more common after endovascular repair. In the same period, complications related to the surgery itself were more common among those who underwent open repair, the investigators found.

During the eight years of follow-up, rupture of the aneurysm occurred in about 5 percent of patients after endovascular repair, compared with about 1 percent of patients after open repair.

Two years after endovascular repair, the need to adjust the repair decreased from about 10 percent among patients who had the procedure in 2001 to about 9 percent for those who had the repair in 2007, the researchers added.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said, “These findings provide important insights into the real-world effectiveness of these two approaches, and suggest similar findings to those seen among the more selective patients enrolled in randomized trials.”

For Schermerhorn, the data favors endovascular repair.

“For most patients, the endovascular approach seems to be safe and effective, and preferable to open surgery,” he said.

More information

Visit the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for more on aortic aneurysms.

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Added Radiation May Help Some With Early Breast Cancer

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Some women who have surgery for early stage breast cancer may benefit from additional radiation to nearby lymph nodes, two new clinical trials suggest.

Researchers found that the extra radiation cut women’s risk of a breast cancer recurrence over the next decade. It did not, however, extend their lives.

The studies, both reported in the July 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, aimed to answer an important question in breast cancer treatment: When women have early stage tumors removed, and cancer cells are found in just a few nearby lymph nodes, should those nodes be treated with radiation?

When no lymph nodes are involved, the choice is straightforward — no radiation, said Dr. Monica Morrow, a breast cancer surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York City.

On the flip side, when numerous lymph nodes are positive for cancer cells, radiation makes sense, she added.

Things get murkier when a woman has one to three nodes affected, said Morrow, who co-wrote an editorial published with the studies.

It’s already standard for women to receive radiation to the breast itself after having tumors surgically removed, explained Dr. Timothy Whelan, the lead researcher on one of the studies.

On top of that, most women receive chemotherapy, and often hormonal medications.

“It hasn’t been clear whether we need to irradiate the lymph nodes, too,” said Whelan, an oncologist at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences Juravinski Cancer Center, in Ontario, Canada.

That is, the benefits of doing it should outweigh the risks, and lymph-node radiation can have side effects — such as short-term inflammation in the lungs, and chronic swelling in the chest, arms and hands (called lymphedema).

But the new findings, according to Whelan, suggest that the benefits could be worthwhile.

His team’s study involved 1,832 breast cancer patients who were all given standard therapy for early stage breast cancer, including breast radiation. Half were randomly assigned to have node radiation, too. Most had one to three affected lymph nodes.

Over the next 10 years, 82 percent of women who received node radiation remained recurrence-free — versus 77 percent of women in the comparison group.

Side-effect rates were relatively low, Whelan said. About 8 percent of the node-radiation group developed lymphedema; just over 1 percent had lung inflammation.

The most common side effect — skin rash — affected half of the women.

Chest radiation does carry the possibility of more serious complications, including damage to the heart or a second cancer. But, at least so far, those problems have not emerged in these patients, Whelan said.

“Computer technology has allowed radiotherapy to evolve in the last 20 years,” he said. “It’s much more targeted now, to avoid damage to the heart or other surrounding tissue. That might be why we’re not seeing some of these side effects.”

However, Morrow said that caution is in order.

“To me, these studies do not justify offering radiation to all women with one to three lymph nodes involved,” she said.

Overall, the difference in cancer recurrence was “obviously not big,” Morrow said. “And,” she added, “it didn’t translate into a difference in overall survival.”

After 10 years, 82 percent of study patients were still alive, regardless of whether they’d received node radiation.

The second study, of 4,000 European women, showed a similar pattern: Those who received node radiation had a somewhat lower risk of recurrence over 10 years; 72 percent remained free of breast cancer, versus 69 percent of the comparison group. But there was no clear advantage in overall survival.

Whelan said he suspects his study’s follow-up has not been long enough.

“We expect that over time, we’ll see a difference in survival, too,” he said.

Regardless, Whelan added, living the rest of your life free of breast cancer “is a good thing, too.”

Still, he agreed that “this therapy is not for everyone.”

Who is a good candidate? Whelan and Morrow both said further research is needed to sort that out.

For example, they said, there are tests on the market that look at the genetic profile of a breast tumor and judge its odds of recurrence. Those might prove helpful in choosing women who could benefit from node radiation.

For now, Morrow said she thinks the presence of cancer cells in one to three lymph nodes is not enough to justify the extra radiation.

Other factors, such as the size and aggressiveness of a woman’s cancer, should also come into play, she suggested.

In the real world, doctors are already offering node radiation to women like those in the studies.

Morrow suggested that those women ask some questions: “Ask your doctor why you’re a candidate,” she said. “Ask about the expected benefits, and ask about the side effects.”

More information

The American Cancer Society has more on breast cancer treatments.

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Access to Doctors Eases in Michigan After Obamacare

WEDNESDAY, July 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Getting a doctor’s appointment in Michigan actually became easier after Medicaid was expanded, even though hundreds of thousands of people became newly insured, new research finds.

“This study illustrates that although fewer practices accept Medicaid than accept private insurance, expanding access to coverage in Michigan has not made it more difficult to get an appointment as a new patient. That is good news for patients in Michigan,” study senior author Dr. Matthew Davis, a professor of pediatrics, internal medicine, public policy and public health at the University of Michigan, said in a university news release.

In the first few months after the state launched the Healthy Michigan Plan under the federal government’s Affordable Care Act (often called Obamacare), one-third of the previously uninsured working-age adults in the state joined the plan. That meant more than 350,000 people were newly insured.

Researchers suspected this might lengthen wait times to see a doctor. In the study, they called hundreds of medical clinics, posing as relatively healthy patients who wanted to book a routine checkup with a new doctor. They called both before and after the insurance expansion.

After the insurance expansion went into effect, 55 percent of clinics offered an appointment to callers who said they had Medicaid, the study found. Before the expansion, just 49 percent were offered an appointment. For callers who said they had private insurance, 86 percent of clinics offered an appointment after the expansion compared with 88 percent before, the investigators found.

Overall, wait times for the first available appointment for all patients remained the same as before expansion — about one week, according to the study.

The findings were published July 22 in the journal Health Affairs.

Under the Healthy Michigan Plan, people need to see a primary care provider within three months of getting coverage. There were concerns that this rule, combined with the large number of new enrollees, would make it difficult for new patients to get a doctor’s appointment.

“We expected that if practices were getting full due to Medicaid expansion and an increase in private insurance under the Affordable Care Act, we would see decreased availability of appointments and longer wait times,” said study author Dr. Renuka Tipirneni, a clinical lecturer in the division of general medicine at the University of Michigan. “In fact, we saw the opposite happen.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has more about Medicaid.

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Many Hospitals Overestimate Their Adherence to Stroke Guidelines

WEDNESDAY, July 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Many U.S. hospitals overestimate their ability to provide fast delivery of a clot-busting drug to stroke patients, a new study finds.

The drug, called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), has been shown to reduce the short- and long-term effects of stroke. It should be given to ischemic stroke patients within 60 minutes of their arrival at the hospital, according to guidelines.

An ischemic stroke is caused by blocked blood flow to the brain.

Researchers surveyed staff in 141 hospitals across the United States who treated more than 48,000 stroke patients in 2009 and 2010, and compared their responses with patient data. The results revealed significant differences between staff perception and reality.

Only 29 percent of staff correctly estimated how long it took stroke patients at their hospital to receive tPA, according to the study published July 22 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Hospitals were ranked as high-, middle- or low-performing based on the percentage of cases where stroke patients received tPA within the recommended time. Eighty-five percent of low-performing hospitals and 42 percent of middle-performing hospitals overestimated their abilities to quickly administer tPA.

Nearly one in five low-performing hospitals believed the time it took them to administer treatment was better than the national average. The study also found that hospitals that overestimated their performance gave tPA less often than other hospitals.

The number of stroke patients treated at a hospital was a major factor in whether hospitals overestimated their performance in providing appropriate treatment. Hospital size or region did not appear to be significant factors.

Hospitals in the study participated in the American Heart Association’s “Get With the Guidelines: Stroke” program, which aims to improve stroke care.

“Institutions at any performance level could benefit from making protocol changes that would better align performance with perception,” study lead author Dr. Cheryl Lin, a former researcher at Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C., said in a journal news release.

“This would have a significant impact on the quality of stroke care delivered across the U.S.,” she added.

More information

The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association has more about stroke treatments.

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Cell Damage Occurs When People Have CT Scans: Study

WEDNESDAY, July 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Cellular damage occurs when people undergo CT scans, but whether or not this causes cancer or any other health problems is unclear, a new study finds.

“The use of medical imaging for heart disease has exploded in the past decade,” study senior author Dr. Joseph Wu, director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, said in a Stanford news release.

“These tests expose patients to a non-trivial amount of low-dose radiation,” Wu added. “But nobody really knows exactly what this low-dose radiation does to the patient. We now have the technology that allows us to look at very subtle, cell-level changes.”

In the study, Wu’s team examined the blood of 67 people before and after they had undergone a heart CT scan.

After the scans, the research did show an increase in DNA damage in cells, as well as cell death. There was also increased expression of genes involved in the repair or death of cells, the study found.

Most cells damaged by the CT scan were repaired, the researchers said, but a small percentage of them died.

The bottom line: “We now know that even exposure to small amounts of radiation from [CT] scanning is associated with cellular damage,” study co-lead author Dr. Patricia Nguyen, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, said in the university news release.

However, she added that it’s still not clear from this study whether or not this causes cancer or any negative effect to the patient. The findings should encourage physicians to use CT scan dose-reduction strategies, Nguyen said.

The study didn’t find any DNA damage in healthy people who were of average weight who had the lowest doses of radiation during their CT scans.

Still, the Stanford team noted that a CT scan exposes patients to at least 150 times the amount of radiation from a single chest X-ray. And in 2007, the U.S. National Cancer Institute predicted that 29,000 future cancer cases could be linked to the 72 million CT scans performed in the country that year alone.

One expert said the study prompts concerns, but it can’t provide definitive answers about cancer risk.

“This study raises the possibility that a routinely performed cardiac procedure may cause future cancer — cells that cannot repair or eliminate DNA damage, known as a mutation, may go on to develop into a cancerous tumor,” explained Dr. Lucy Langer, an oncologist with Compass Oncology in Portland, Ore., part of the US Oncology Network.

“However, this study does not demonstrate or attempt to link radiation-induced DNA damage to the development of future cancers,” she said. In the meantime, the findings support the notion that “care should be taken to adhere to minimizing radiation exposure whenever possible,” Langer said.

Nguyen agreed. “We need to learn more because it’s not a benign effect, even at these low dosages,” she said. “Our research supports the idea that maybe physicians shouldn’t just use the best image quality [requiring higher doses] in all cases.

“We shouldn’t eliminate CT scans,” she said, “because they’re obviously important. But, you can make it safer by reducing the doses, by getting better machines and technology, and by giving patients something to protect them.”

The study was published online July 22 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about diagnostic imaging.

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IKEA Giving Away Free Repair Kits After Two Children Died From Tipped-Over Dressers

Photo: courtesy of Ikea/ CSPC press release

The affordable home-goods mecca Ikea is introducing a potentially life-saving repair program after two children died last year from being smashed beneath toppled sets of the company’s MALM dresser drawers.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in cooperation with Ikea, announced Wednesday in a press release that the company will now offer a free wall-anchoring repair kit for the MALM 3- and 4-drawer chests and two styles of MALM 6- drawer chests. The offer is also available for all children’s chests and dressers taller than 23 ½ inches, and adult drawers taller than 29 ½ inches.

The kit includes wall-anchoring hardware, assembly instructions and safety warning labels to stick onto the furniture. It also contains tip-over restraints (special straps and hooks that prevent the structure from falling all the way to the floor) for owners who choose not to secure dressers to the wall, according to the release.

IKEA commercial manager Patty Lobell told USA Today in a statement that the company is “deeply saddened” by the deaths and hopes “our efforts prevent further tragedies.”

The program is a response to the deaths of two children caused by MALM chests tipping over and landing on them. In February 2014, a 2-year-old boy from Pennsylvania died after being pinned against his bed when a 6-drawer chest collapsed on him. A 23-month old boy from Washington became fatally trapped under a 3-drawer chest that fell over just four months later. In both tragedies, the drawers were not secured against the walls, CNN Money reported.

The two organizations are urging people to get in touch with Ikea online, or call (888) 966-4532 for a free repair kit.

A child dies every two weeks and a child is injured every 24 minutes in the U.S. from furniture or TVs tipping over, according to the CPSC, which has launched a public safety campaign to educate parents about the dangers. Two-thirds of the incidents involve toddlers.

As part of the “Anchor It” campaign, the CSPC has also published online instructions and tips for anchoring other types of furniture to prevent accidents. They advise mounting or anchoring televisions, as well as top-heavy furniture like dressers, to the walls to be safe.

CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye acknowledged in an interview with USA Today that not everyone can install anchors, either because there are problems with the walls or they live in a rental unit, and called on Ikea and the rest of the furniture industry to find ways to design more stable furniture.