Dissolving Away Fat in the Doctor's Office
It seems like the cosmetic physician's magic wand.
Just inject one of a variety of chemical cocktails into fat deposits in the body and watch them evaporate! This technique is called mesotherapy or LipoDissolve.
Or the doctor can aim a radio wave at problem areas of, say, the face or arms to tighten skin without any incision at all. This process is called Thermage, Thermacool or Thermalift.
The physician can even target and destroy fat cells with high-intensity ultrasound, a strategy known as LipoSonix.
But the patient needs to choose his doctor wisely, because the techniques are only as "magic" as the physician employing them.
In the case of Thermage, for example, "We have seen questionable results and some good results, but we still don't know if it is the surgeon or the machine," says Franklin L. DiSpaltro, a plastic surgeon in West Orange, N.J., and a past president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS).
Mesotherapy is risky due to the huge proliferation of injectable chemicals. "It seems to work in certain practitioners' hands, but we don't know their formulation, skill set, and how they control their environment," DiSpaltro says.
Adds Peter B. Fodor, a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles and an associate clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles, "A lot of people use a lot of substances [for mesotherapy]. I have not seen a patient saying, 'I had it done and it worked,' but I have seen many patients who had mesotherapy and now have complications." These can include skin indentations, changes in skin color, and infections.