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PLASTIC SURGERY

Italians among the most surgically enhanced

Italy has one of the world's highest uptakes of plastic surgery, with eyelid and breast surgery being particularly popular, according to a new survey.

Published: 29 July 2014 13:00 CEST
Italians among the most surgically enhanced
There were 27,952 eyelid jobs in Italy last year. Plastic surgery photo: Shutterstock

Last year there were 182,680 plastic surgery procedures in Italy, putting the country in eighth place globally, according to figures released by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (Isaps).

The most popular place for plastic surgery is Brazil, with 1.49 million operations in 2013, pushing the US to second place with 1.45 million.

In Europe, Germany topped the chart, coming fourth place with 343,479 procedures last year, while Spain came in seventh place with 213,297 operations.

Italians’ willingness to go under the knife is due to the population being “very interested in their appearance,” Gianluca Campiglio, a surgeon and Isaps’ national secretary for Italy, told The Local.

“We have a long history of aesthetic medicine and very good training,” he said, although admits the industry was hit by the economic crisis. In response surgeons slashed prices and have been welcoming an increase in patients over the past two years, both men and women.

“The number of male patients has increased recently. Around 70 percent of our patients are female; this is because one of the most common surgeries is breast enlargements.

“If we were to exclude gender-specific surgeries, we would reach a gender balance,” Campiglio said. 

In Italy last year the most popular procedure was eyelid surgery, which according to Isaps “rejuvenates the upper and lower eyelids by removing excess fat, skin and muscle.” There were 27,952 eyelid jobs last year, taking around two hours each.

Coming in close second were breast enlargements, with Italy’s 800 plastic surgeons performing 26,520 such surgeries in 2013. Overall breast procedures were the most popular type of surgery in Italy, when taking into account lifts and reductions for both men and women.

Liposuction – using a surgical vacuum to remove unwanted fat – was also popular with 16,328 procedures in Italy last year.

Despite much media attention being given to the hair transplant of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's three-time prime minister, there were just 1,224 operations of this type in Italy last year.

Italy topped both the US and Brazil for the number of penis enlargements, with 256 registered last year, although the country fell far behind Germany’s 2,786 procedures. 

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PLASTIC SURGERY

Widower sues over pornstar wife’s fatal fifth boob job

Pornstar "Sexy Cora" was only 23-years-old when she went to have her fifth breast enlargement. The operation proved fatal and now her husband is suing the clinic that performed it.

Published: 9 March 2016 12:29 CET
Widower sues over pornstar wife’s fatal fifth boob job
Tim Wosnitza outside the city court in Hamburg. Photo: DPA

Despite dying at such a young age, Carolin Wosnitza, aka Sexy Cora, had already set up a porn website with a reported turnover of millions of Euros, made a name for herself on reality TV, and released two pop songs.

After moving from Berlin to the red lights of harbour city Hamburg in 2005, Wosnitza had her first breast enlargement in her late teens – a present from husband Tim.

She started out working as a prostitute in Hamburg’s famed St. Pauli district.

But when the couple realized they could make money filming themselves having sex, they moved on to self-made porn, eventually creating one of the most successful labels of the genre in Germany.

Carolin Wosnitza, aka Sexy Cora. Photo: DPA

The porn stars quick rise to fame was accompanied by, and perhaps down to, her willingness to take headline grabbing risks. In 2009 she was hospitalized after trying to break the world record for the number of blow-jobs given in one day.

But the pressures of conforming to the porno aesthetic also led Wosnitza to have several breast enlargements, and after her fifth in 2011 at the Alster Clinic in Hamburg she suffered a cardiac arrest, dying nine days later.

An anaesthetist was convicted of negligent manslaughter in 2013 after he was found to have made several mistakes which led to her death, including switching off a heart monitor during surgery.

Now, husband Tim Wosnitza has initiated a civil case which will start on Friday. At the Hamburg court, the widower is demanding almost a million Euros in compensation.

Tim is claiming that the messed-up operation cost him hundreds of thousands of Euros in the business he ran in common with his wife. He is also seeking compensation for the trauma caused by the loss of his wife.

Speaking to Bild, Tim said: “I still haven’t seen a cent, even though the clinic claims that their patients are insured against all the costs of the procedure.”

Addiction to surgery

Sven von Saldern, president of the German Society for Plastic Surgery (DGÄPC), explained that putting yourself under the knife can turn into an obsession for some people.

“First you have your eyelids done, then you go for a facelift, then you let your breast get touched-up and then you pay to get rid of your stomach fat,” he says.

While at first these operations can improve people’s quality of life “you have to watch out that it doesn’t develop a momentum of its own,” he warns.

Most people who seek beauty operations are female, with 86 percent of Germans who pay to go under the knife being women, say DGÄPC.

Jürgen Margraf, a psychologist from the University of Bremen says that most women who have too much treatment done belong to Germany’s wealthy elite.

“Mostly it’s not the woman making the money – they define themselves in these relationships by how they look – and the competition never sleeps,” says Margraf.

But it’s not just women who pay large amounts of money for this treatment.

Kai from Berlin started getting surgery when he was 18. Two nose jobs were followed by three lip injections and botox in his forehead.

“People think it makes you happy, but it doesn’t,” he said. “It gives you a short boost and then it’s over.”

SEE ALSO: Fake plastic surgeon sentenced to four years

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