‘Beauty chip’: Implant worries doctors and can even cause stroke

It was thinking about losing a few pounds and increasing muscle mass that beautician Larissa (not her real name), 25 years old, accepted the suggestion of a pharmacist friend and implanted the so-called beauty chip, in July 2023.

The result, according to the beautician, didn’t take long to appear: 5 kilos less on the scale in the following two months.

However, it also had several side effects.

“I had a lot of pimples on my face and back, something that didn’t even happen when I was a teenager. My hair also started to fall out a lot, when I took a shower it was desperate because clumps would fall out,”

it says.

To deal with these problems caused by the implant, the beautician sought medical help and had to undergo skin and hair treatment for three months.

“I had to seek help from a dermatologist, I needed to use face and back creams, take vitamins to reduce hair loss and also undergo in-office laser treatment”, he adds.

Beauty chip or hormonal implant

The so-called “beauty chip”, like the one used by the beautician, is a subcutaneous hormonal implant — placed under the skin, mainly in the buttocks and abdomen — that has been used for weight loss, combating aging, reducing body fat, increasing libido and muscle mass.

These implants are made in compounding pharmacies and implanted in medical clinics using local anesthesia. Implementation takes place in just a few minutes.

There are two types of these devices: the so-called absorbable ones, that is, the implant is absorbed under the skin until there is nothing left, and the non-absorbable ones, made of silicone and which resemble a small plastic tube, placed under the skin and which later needs to be removed.

According to experts, they can contain numerous substances ranging from hormones such as testosterone or gestrinone, anabolic steroids and compounds to inhibit appetite, accelerate metabolism and even fluid retention.

It is precisely this mixture of countless components that has generated apprehension among doctors.

“Many of these implants still have medications in their composition to combat the possible side effects caused by these substances in the body”, says Fernando Nestor Facio Junior, head of the Department of Andrology at the Brazilian Society of Urology (SBU).

The biggest problem, according to experts, is that these beauty chips or hormonal implants are manipulated, made in pharmacies, and do not have leaflets and adequate information about their compounds, effectiveness or safety.

Furthermore, they are not approved by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) for commercial use and aesthetic purposes.

“There is no control over what is placed in these implants, there are no studies, scientific research and tests on their effects on the human body, as well as their adverse effects”,

adds Maria Celeste Osório Wender, president of the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations (Febrasgo).

Doctors also warn that there is no safe dose for using hormones for aesthetic purposes and emphasize that the side effects caused by these devices can be serious and in many cases irreversible.

These side effects range from the mildest, such as skin irritation, hair loss, the appearance of pimples and deepening of the voice in women, to the most serious, such as acute myocardial infarction, thromboembolism and cerebrovascular accident (CVA), liver and kidney complications. , muscle and infections.

“This device can be made from anything, any type of hormone can be mixed, it can be placed at any dose. No one knows exactly whether what is being sold is what is actually being sold”,

highlights Alexandre Hohl, vice-president of the Department of Female Endocrinology, Andrology and Transgenderness at the Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabology (SBEM).

For Hohl, the indiscriminate use of these devices is a serious public health problem and pharmacists and doctors should be held responsible for the side effects caused to patients.

“In the search for aesthetics, performance, improvement in muscle mass, an almost criminal issue is happening in these so-called hormonal implants manipulated in the national territory”, he adds.

Another point highlighted by experts is the issue of absorption — which, according to the doctors who place the implant, can take from 6 months to 3 years to be fully absorbed by the body.

“Every medicine undergoes study and we know the exact time it takes to act in the body. For example, antibiotics that last 12 hours. Now how can an implant last from 6 months to up to 3 years? There’s no way to explain this”, adds Facio Junior.

Open letter to Anvisa

The indiscriminate and, according to experts, unsupervised sale of this type of product in the country led seven medical entities to send an open letter to Anvisa last month, demonstrating concern about the growing misuse of these implants.

According to the entities, these implants are marketed praising a perfect body and often even saying that they help to lead a healthier life, but they do not have any ethical or scientific support.

The text is signed by the Brazilian Association for the Study of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome (Abeso), the Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabology (Sbem), the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations (Febrasgo), the Brazilian Society of Exercise and Sports Medicine ( Sbmee), Brazilian Society of Diabetes (SBD), Brazilian Society of Urology (SBU) and the Brazilian Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology (SBGG).

“These products have no medical indication. In the search for a perfect body, people cannot put their health and life at risk. So, what is expected is that the sale and use of these implants called beauty chips will be banned. These compounds are not marketed for disease treatment. All of this is for aesthetic use,”

adds Hohl.

In the text, medical societies ask Anvisa to take measures regarding the prescription, marketing and use of these hormonal implants.

Anvisa informed that it adopts measures to mitigate the risks related to the use of medicines and especially situations of abuse that may pose a risk to health.

Among the actions adopted by the Agency are the monitoring and inspection of compounding pharmacies and the monitoring of advertisements on the internet using an artificial intelligence tool (EPINET) in order to identify and prevent the sale of irregular products.

Regarding the use of the substance gestrinone in these devices, the agency clarified that “the experts from this Agency assessed that there is no technical and scientific evidence that would support the use of implantable gestrinone for the purposes of weight loss, muscle mass gain, hormone replacement, treatment of symptoms of premenstrual tension, regulation of menstrual periods, increased libido and aesthetics.

To date, the use of gestrinone in hard gelatin capsules for the treatment of endometriosis (as originally approved by Anvisa) is the only case of use whose efficacy, safety and quality have been evaluated and approved, therefore there are no restrictions on the handling of gestrinone in pharmaceutical form cited for the treatment of endometriosis”, he explained in a note.

In relation to specific requests contained in the aforementioned letter written by medical entities, Anvisa explained that the document is still undergoing technical evaluation and will soon be responded to by the entities.

*With information from the BBC Brasil website

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