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Hi everybody. I'm Dr. David Reath, and I'm here to talk about this week's Truth-O-Meter
Tuesday question. We asked kind of an interesting question.
It had to do with the relative weight of saline or silicone implants. And it's interesting
because not everybody in the office knew the right answer.
But this is what we asked: we said, "Saline breast implants weigh less than silicone."
The answer is false. Silicone implants actually weigh a slight
bit less. For those of you who are scientists, the specific gravity of saline is 1, the specific
gravity of silicone in these implants, is about .97 or .98.
So there's just a slight difference; you really can't detect the difference that much.
But silicone isn't heavier. In fact, don't take my word for it.
Let me show you what we have. We have a 400cc silicone implant here and
a saline implant filled with 400cc here. Let's put them on the scale and see which
one weighs more. Here's our kitchen scale, which we have zeroed.
Here we go, it's now zero. It's reading in grams.
We will start with the silicone implant. 408 grams. That's because there's 400cc of
silicone, and a little bit for the shell. Now saline here, also 400cc, 425 grams.
So actually the shell of the implant, which is the same in either case, weighs 25 grams,
and there's 400cc of saline here. But silicone is the lighter implant, not saline.
What's also interesting is that because saline is a fluid, that as you sort of feel it moving,
it actually feels a little heavier--or you feel more stresses through it, than the cohesive
gel does. Bottom line is there's not a great deal of
difference. But if you want to get technical, and of course we are technical, silicone is
lighter than saline. But let's find out who won this week.
Brenda Morrow, congratulations Brenda you've been one of our most consistent players, and
this week you are our lucky winner. So we have a $100 gift card for you.
And for everyone else out there, thanks for making this a really interesting question
this week. We'll have one for you next week.