One more injection: Are you at risk of addiction to cosmetic treatments?

A few years ago, American actor Courteney Cox acknowledged that for a long time, each filler injection seemed small and insignificant on its own. Only when she looked at old photos did she realize how far she had moved away from her natural appearance. That feeling — that there is always one more small thing to fix and that one more treatment will not hurt — is at the center of a new Israeli study that examined whether, for some women, cosmetic treatments can turn into a pattern with addictive characteristics. The finding, which surprised even the researchers themselves, is especially striking: One in five women in Israel who have undergone cosmetic treatments is at moderate to high risk for an addictive pattern of use. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the study given the sharp rise in the number of cosmetic procedures in recent years.