Are you ready for a flab jab?
Lipodissolve is the latest craze in body sculpting. It involves poking a needle under the skin and injecting a mixture of solutions intended to dissolve fat cells and flush them out of your body. It can take two to six sessions to get the desired result at a cost of about $400 for each treatment.
Thousands of folks willing to spend thousands of dollars on treatments think it’s worthwhile. And Lipodissolve centers are opening across the country.
But not a lot is known about the treatment because it’s so new, and people are wondering whether it works.
Kimberly Hulse says yes. She is undergoing the needle to trim pockets of fat on her hips left from a pregnancy about two years ago.
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“I just want to be the way I was before I had my daughter,” said Hulse, who is healthy and exercises. “I’d been trying for two years to get rid of it [the fat] and couldn’t get it off. And with these five treatments, it’s gone. It’s awesome. It just feels so good.”
“What we’re dealing with is body shaping,” said John Hiebert, a board-certified plastic surgeon and the medical director of Advanced Lipo Dissolve in Overland Park, Kan. The company is based in St. Louis.
Lipodissolve, however, is not a treatment for obesity. It is aimed at fat that won’t go away regardless of the amount of exercising or dieting. Hiebert said the procedure offers a much less painful and less time-consuming alternative to liposuction, still the most popular body-contouring treatment.
Lipodissolve has not been approved for treating fat by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and there are no peer-reviewed studies showing it even works.
In Europe, where many U.S. practitioners have trained, it has been used for years.
“I’ve been around a long time and seen a lot of flash in the pans come and go,” said Hiebert, who has long used liposuction to treat his patients. “The advantage of this product is that it works and is safe.”
Not all medical experts are as confident as Hiebert. At its conference in April, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery announced a major study of the treatment.
At the time, Dr. Mark Jewell, society president, said, “Our goal is to provide physicians and their patients with the information they need to make good decisions.”
He said the association could not currently endorse the treatments because “we don’t have enough clinical data or FDA approval to support their use.”
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Points to consider
– Try diet and exercise first to lose fat.
– Don’t be swayed by unrealistic promises. Clearly understand any guarantees.
– Understand the risks and side effects and fully disclose any medical conditions and medications.
– Ask for client references and get recommendations.
– Best candidates for treatment: Healthy and fit people who want to reduce small, localized areas of resistant fat.
– Poor candidates: People who are obese or who have a high body mass index, have insulin-dependent diabetes, take blood thinners or anti-coagulants, or have active skin infections.
Information is available from
The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery:
www.surgery.org
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons:
www.plasticsurgery.org
The American Society of Nonsurgical Aesthetics:
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www.asal-meso.com
— The Kansas City Star