FAQ fat

Q. I’m a 35-year-old boy and, although I go to the gym regularly, I don’t succeed in eliminating the so-called love handles completely. What do you advise me to do?
A. The depot fat occurring in specific areas of the body, such as the lumbar region and the waistline (the so-called love handles), can be successfully removed by liposuction or liposculpture.
Although body contouring surgery does not replace diet and physical exercise, liposuction and liposculpture allow the removal of the localized depot fat that cannot be removed otherwise.

Q. Can “pads” be removed by mesotherapy?
A. No. The fat depot (pads) localized in some specific areas of the body (abdomen, sides, nates, thighs, knees, etc.) can be removed only by liposuction and liposculpture. On the other hand, mesotherapy can have some effects on cellulite (but without eliminating it completely); however, it is necessary to carry on the therapy with regularity, if possible associating it with a balanced diet. In any case, it is not a definitive solution.

Q. I’ve heard of a new drug which would allow the excess fat to be definitively dissolved without resorting to surgery: is it true?
A. No. At present, there are no scientific documents proving the effectiveness of this kind of drugs.

Q. I’m 38 and I’ve always had troubles with the fat depot on the sides and with small breasts. I would like to know if there is an operation capable of sucking out the excess fat and reusing it to increase the breast size.
A. The fat depot in the trochanteric region (sides, thighs, nates) may be easily removed by a liposuction or liposculpture operation. The lipofilling technique, which consists in taking little quantities of fat through a thin needle or a cannula and injecting them into the area to be treated, can be useful for filling the lips or the small wrinkles, but it does not allow for breast augmentation, in that the breasts are mainly made up of fat and, partly, of mammary gland tissue and, to make up for the small size of the mammary gland, it is necessary to implant a prosthesis. Anyhow, the two kinds of surgery - liposuction and additive mastoplasty - can be performed at the same time.

Q. I’m 45 and, after several attempts to lose weight, the skin of my arms and my thighs has “slackened” and now it looks flabby and loose. I have reached my ideal weight, but the trouble with the arms and the thighs persists anyway. Is there a treatment capable of solving my problem?
A. Yes. The most indicated treatment to remove the excess skin on the arms and the thighs is upper and lower limb-lift. As it happens with cervicofacial lift, the operation consists in removing the excess skin and stretching the tissues. The scars will remain in the internal part of the arms and the thighs and won’t be very visible.