Reflections on Beauty

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Imagine rubbing an apple on your belly to decrease hunger pangs between meals. We all know that wouldn’t work, don’t we? In a similar vein, however, Chinese women are drinking fish collagen in hopes of softening their skin. While we find this an interesting notion, we aren’t convinced it will create younger-looking skin.

Plastic surgery is big business among the Chinese, spending $1.47 billion in 2007. Skincare is also booming—reports are that the Chinese spent $5.3 billion on skincare products in 2007, the most recent year that statistics are available. Doubtless, many firms are eager to jump on the profit bandwagon with unique products to feed Chinese appetites for youthful skin.

Fish Oil = Softer Skin?

A Chinese firm named DHC claims that drinking a $4.58 bottle of their fish collagen daily will give consumers “skin as soft as a baby’s.” While drinking fish collagen may have other nutritional benefits, Chinese nutrition experts aren’t convinced it will deliver on its promise of better skin. Sun Yat-Sen University Hospital’s Vice Director of Nutrition Studies states that the amount of collagen that can be absorbed through the digestive system is insignificant. While we have no “official” opinion about the value of fish collagen drinks, we agree with Yat-Sen’s advice to eat more vegetables and fruits, for their high antioxidant properties.

If building collagen is your goal, re-read last week’s blog post about the three best ways to greater collagen production: laser skin resurfacing (our favorite being Fraxel CO2) Retin-A and similar skincare products, and hyaluronic acid fillers, such as Restylane, Juvederm, Sculptra and Perlane, all of which contribute to collagen growth.

For now, we think you can pass on the fish soda (eww!).

According to the British press, there’s been a surge in the number of British men wanting a better looking body, and they’re choosing liposuction to get it. Witness their soccer star, Ronaldo, who had lipo on his abdomen last year. One wonders if this was the beginning of the rush, considering that since August of 2009, liposuction for UK men has increased by 117%!.

Before the increase in liposuction for the torso, UK men were most interested in eliminating their gynecomastia to avoid the look of Simon Cowell and his man boobs. Suddenly, however, they’re hot to trade their love handles for a 6-pack belly.

Here in the US, men’s cosmetic surgery procedures increased by 9% from 2008 to 2009, resulting in nearly a million surgical procedures, with lipo the top pick. Nose jobs, eyelid surgery, breast reduction and halr transplantation rounded out the top five American men’s procedures.

Here in our practice at Reflections Center in New Jersey, laser liposuction enables us to improve the contour with little to no downtime, using laser energy to create predictable results by targeting the energy to remove areas of fat. Local anesthesia is all that’s needed, giving you a comfortable experience, a faster recovery and less bruising. Tiny cannulae are used to extract the fat. It’s great for those who have tried dieting and exercise but, after childbirth or aging, find that targeted areas of stubborn fat still remain. Advantages over regular liposuction include skin tightening, with less risk of lumps and bumps that can happen with traditional lipo. SlimLipo’s wavelength melts the fat away, 7 times more than SmartLipo. Risks of burns is remarkably reduced—in fact, we’ve never seen a burn in our practice. Great for jowls, neck, male breasts and torso.

If you’re thinking about lipo, call us today and enjoy the feeling of less fat without a long recovery time!

Is it possible that a chemotherapy drug could be another wrinkle-fighter? Although it’s too soon to tell for certain, a researcher from the University of Michigan seems to think it may be true based on a small study of 21 adults between the ages of 56 and 85.

Fluorouracil, also known as 5-FU, is a chemotherapy agent used to fight colon and pancreatic cancers. Sold under the brand names Efudex, Carac or Fluoroplex, the cream version of Fluorouracil is used to treat age-related keratoses in the skin as well as basal cell skin cancers.

In the study at UM, dermatologists found that patients had a reduction in both fine and coarse wrinkles within only two weeks of applying Fluorouracil cream to their skin twice a day.

Before Fluorouracil can be routinely used as an anti-wrinkling agent, further FDA testing will be necessary. For now, your best bet to fight dynamic wrinkles and lines remains Botox or the newly-released Dysport, both of which are available in our office. We at Reflections are always eager to offer new products to our patients once they’ve been proven both safe and effective, so we’ll be keeping on eye out for future Fluorouracil studies.

Pimples. Zits. By any name, acne is a distressing condition. Although acne generally disappears by the time we reach college-age, some people suffer with acne break-outs well into their 20’s and beyond. Previously, this type of refractory acne was treated with oral Accutane, which Roche Pharmaceuticals removed from the American market in 2009 for legal and financial reasons. Now, laser treatments are the preferred method for controlling this troublesome condition.

But there’s something new on the horizon that may provide relief for acne sufferers from an unexpected source. A Chicago plastic surgeon, Dr. Anil Shah, claims that injecting Botox into the skin may be able to treat acne, due to its ability to suppress the production of too much oil.

Botox is well known as a treatment for a broad variety of conditions. It was first created to treat muscle spasms. It’s also known to resolve migraines and excessive sweating, reduce lower back muscle tension, help TMJ sufferers and even relieve the problems of an overactive bladder. And, of course, we all know that Botox is used to soften facial wrinkles. This new application of Botox may change the way physicians treat adult acne in the future.

Dr. Shah says, “Treated patients had less oily skin, smaller pores, and a dramatic reduction in (pimples) and blackheads. Our subjects reported far fewer breakouts.” To our knowledge, Dr. Shah is the first doctor in the world to inject Botox directly into the skin, rather than in the muscles.

After treating over 100 acne patients with Botox, Shah notes that many of them have enjoyed a blemish-free complexion for over a year. He thinks Botox therapy will be reserved for adults with acne, not teens due to the strong hormonal influence that drives teen acne.

Most patients should opt for conventional therapies first, like topical antibiotics, proper skin cleansers, oral antibiotics, etc. But when those measures don’t work, laser therapy offers safe and predictably excellent results. At this point, the risk of injecting Botox into the skin is too great to consider this as a treatment regiment yet.

Whether Botox will be determined to be a viable treatment for acne is still unclear, but Dr. Shah’s initial results are interesting. It will require significant research before the safety and efficacy can be truly established, but any tool to help stamp out acne is always welcomed at Reflections. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

In the meantime, check out our acne before/after photos to see how we’re successfully treating acne at Reflections, center for skin and body.