By: John Sampson, MD

Most of the efforts to come up with an “all natural” breast augmentation method have failed for one simple reason: “natural” products (even your own body tissues) pose additional challenges that traditional breast enhancement procedures using implants simply don’t. Here are three examples:

• Breast Implant Pills: These usually claim to control breast size by adjusting the body’s levels of certain hormones that sometimes cause breasts to swell. In reality, most of these products don’t even have the chemical effect they pretend to – sometimes even the reverse (read one of my colleague’s posts about this here). But even if they did have the intended effect, it would be incredibly difficult to create a pill that worked the same way for every woman.
• Soy Implants: Environmentally-friendly implants sounded like a great idea on paper, but unfortunately the natural filler tended to leak out and cause swelling in body tissues. Both saline and modern silicone gel implants are designed in a way to be highly durable and minimize the risk of rupture and leakage.
• Fat Transfer: Years down the line this might become an accepted way to add very small amounts of fat to the breasts, but the risks are high and there are good reasons the American Society of Plastic Surgeons opposes fat transfer or “stem cell” breast augmentation. Fat transplanted in large volumes tends to die, harden, shift position, get partially (or entirely) reabsorbed by the body, or develop infections. By contrast, implant-based breast augmentation in the Detroit area has a very low complication rate, and every year we’re finding new ways to minimize risks.

Bottom line: “Natural” breast enhancement is a nice concept, but in practice, the current implant technology allows surgeons an incredible level of control over how the final result will look and feel, and help us avoid complications.

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