Indiana Plastic Surgery Blog

Seattle radio station KUOW recently hosted an expert panel featuring a dietician, fitness trainer and plastic surgeon to answer the question, “When is body-consciousness healthy, and when does it become an obsession?”

In order to address the question, radio show host Steve Scher asked each panel member to respond to several questions related to body image concepts, offering listeners tips to help maintain a healthy self-awareness and recognize if body consciousness becomes unhealthy.

Listen to your body, but don’t let it take over your head

The mind and body are closely related, and it’s healthy to be constantly conscious of your physical well-being and limitations.  But when considerations of body consciousness and self-awareness leave the realm of the physical and become too entrenched in the psychological, they can quickly become preoccupations that cause people to pin their hopes for achieving self-fulfillment and life satisfaction to achieving an ideal physical form.

To differentiate between healthy and unhealthy body consciousness, registered dietician Julie Church offered the following thoughts:

“The root motivation that leads [body consciousness] to be unhealthy is when one is subscribing to the equation that an ideal form is going to give them happiness, success, relationships, love, fulfillment—all those things.  I believe that’s when it leads to the preoccupation and obsession, and that’s when it becomes unhealthy.”

Minor physical flaws should remain minor concerns

According to Seattle plastic surgeon Dr. Jourdan Gottlieb, if you’re seeking cosmetic surgery or taking other health risks because you are preoccupied with a minor physical flaw, it’s a sign of unhealthy body consciousness.

“Consciousness of your body is important all the time, however when it begins to interfere either with a patient’s mental health, physical health, or causes them to take unnecessary risk, it becomes a problem.  When people inappropriately come asking for surgery for fairly minor problems or for problems that have other, safer means of treatment, it’s interfering with their life and their health decisions.”

Dr. Gottlieb also added that patients who seek cosmetic surgery for minor flaws, such as seeking liposuction to remove very small fat deposits that could be addressed by changes to diet and exercise habits are typically not satisfied with their plastic surgery outcomes.

“A patient that comes in with an apparently trivial problem and has a great deal of concern over it is much less likely to have a satisfactory outcome,” said Dr. Gottlieb.

Before seeking surgical body contouring or making significant changes to your diet or exercise program, spend some time considering the help of trained experts, such as registered dieticians, licensed fitness trainers and board certified plastic surgeons to help you make healthy decisions about changing your body and your lifestyle.  The more realistic your physical goals and expectations, the happier you will be with your body.

An emergency suspension of Dr. Yves N. Jean-Baptiste medical license was recently issued by the Florida Board of Medicine, after an investigation revealed that the doctor, a family medicine specialist, violated state regulations.

According to the Florida Board of Medicine, last year the doctor allowed two unlicensed medical assistants to illegally perform liposuction on a patient in an unregistered surgical facility then failed to properly document important details of the procedure, including the amount of anesthesia used and the volume of fat removed.

The board’s investigation stemmed from an unrelated complaint made by the liposuction patient, but its findings resulted not only in the yearlong suspension of the doctor’s license but also in a $50,000 fine and potential three-year probation following the suspension.

“I think he’s in a lot of trouble because he doesn’t have a surgical background,” remarked Dr. Trina Espinola, a St. Petersburg surgeon and Florida medical board member.

Although state medical boards do not currently limit medical practice based on a doctor’s specialty certification, Florida’s community of plastic surgery and dermatology specialists has grown concerned about the rise of untrained professionals, whose patients they end up treating when complications arise.

The Florida Board of Medicine has taken notice of this concern, and in the interest of protecting patient safety is cracking down on inadequately trained physicians like Jean-Baptiste looking to cash-in on the cosmetic surgery industry after pursuing only a few days of training.

“This kind of case underscores how a weekend of coursework doesn’t prepare physicians to perform procedures such as liposuction,” said Chris Nuland, a Jacksonville attorney representing Florida’s plastic surgeons and dermatologists.

Considering that physicians certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery spend two to three years exclusively learning how to correctly perform plastic surgery procedures, including several hours of liposuction training, it’s no wonder that physicians who do not undergo this level of training are not qualified to perform plastic surgery.

Just as board certified family medicine doctors are specialists in addressing a wide range of physical conditions and illnesses that may afflict both pediatric and adult patients, board certified plastic surgeons are true plastic surgery specialists and are uniquely qualified to perform liposuction.  You don’t visit a plastic surgeon to treat your child’s sore throat, so don’t visit a family medicine doctor for body contouring surgery.

FDA warnings were issued to several med-spas last week (including one here in Indiana) regarding claims made about the safety and effectiveness of lipodissolve.

With an injection of certain chemicals (phosphatidylcholine, deoxycholate, and others) lipodissolve is said to remove areas of persistent fat.  The procedure, which is also known as injection lipolysis, lacks scientific evidence supporting its use as a fat removal treatment.

The medispas involved were apparently claiming that Lipodissolve was “superior to other fat removal procedures, including liposuction” and making misleading claims about the safety record and effectiveness of lipodissolve.

Given the lack of supporting evidence for lipodissolve and the side effects reported by consumers, officials in the FDA felt it was necessary to crack down on these misleading claims and warn consumers about them.  The medical spas are being instructed to “correct these violations and prevent similar violations in the future.”

You can find more information on the FDA website

No, we can’t claim that fat of all kinds, amounts and shapes is healthy or fashionable. However, medical research suggests that fat around the hips, thighs and buttocks may work advantageously against heart and metabolic diseases.

Hip fat burns at a slower rate than tummy fat, a distinction that, for the body, means the release of fewer cytokines associated with health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Additionally, hip fat absorbs harmful fatty acids, and produces anti-inflammatory agents and adiponectin, the fat-derived hormone that assists in moderating metabolic functions and suppresses the development of diseases such as type-2 diabetes and obesity.

When you carry lots of fat around the tummy, you have a higher risk for both diabetes and heart disease. Also known as visceral fat, this dangerous fat lies closer to vital organs, whereas subcutaneous fat is situated closer to the skin and is more visually accessible. Pro-inflammatory cytokines are the culprit here, a protein that accelerates inflammation. As Dr. Rallie McAllister explains, “pear-shaped individuals tend to have more subcutaneous fat, while people who are apple-shaped tend to have more visceral fat.” In other words, it’s better to be a Jennifer Lopez than a Rosie O’Donnell.

Yet another advantage of the healthier, hip fat is that it more stubbornly resists modification compared to tummy fat, and therefore releases fewer cytokines. No longer an aesthetic enemy, hip fat indicates health, and as we all know — health is beauty.

The trick, then, is to keep the waist trim while maintaining the full shape of the thighs, buttock and hips. This might be a challenge for science, a task that has already caught the attention of researchers at Oxford University who believe that we may in the future be able to redistribute body fat to the hips in order to benefit from the purported health benefits.

Related Links

• BBC News: “Having a big bum, hips and thighs is healthy”
• Body Shape, Fat Distribution May Be  Best Predictor of Health Risks

Q: What is the best type of liposuction?

A: While the operator is always the most important factor, several new liposuction platforms have been introduced in recent years. There is no best method because each platform has particular benefits. For example, water assisted liposuction is great for removing a large volume of fat, while ultrasonic liposuction is great for precise body contouring.

Q: Why do I keep hearing about new liposuction methods?

A: Plastic and cosmetic surgeons are trying to set themselves apart with more effective liposuction methods. You might hear about “reduced downtime” or “reduced trauma to surrounding tissues” in the marketing for these procedures; just know that any proven liposuction technique will utilize the same basic tools as the standard tumescent liposuction technique.

Q: Can I get liposuction anywhere on my body? What is the most common area to treat?

A: Many people aren’t aware that liposuction can be done on so many areas of the body. While the abdomen and thighs are probably most common, you can also get liposuction below your chin or even on the ankles.

Q: What type of doctor is most qualified to perform liposuction?

A: See a board-certified plastic surgeon for your liposuction.

Q: Is liposuction “minimally-invasive” like some of the advertising says?

A: The techniques have improved over time, making recovery quicker and incisions smaller, but liposuction is still cosmetic surgery. It’s not like getting a quick Botox injection.

Click here to read more about Liposuction in Munster, Indiana.