Experts wary of injections that promise to melt fat
Cosmetic surgery may be unappealing and expensive. So what if someone promised an easy treatment that promises to literally melt the fat?
Some doctors now offer injections of chemical cocktails they say will do just that, providing a noninvasive way to shape the body. But the procedures are not federally approved, and some doctors say they can lead to serious complications.
Generically referred to as "lipo-dissolve" after a popular treatment brand, or "lunchtime lipo," the procedure is aimed at people with trouble spots, not the obese.
"We're just kind of pecking away at the fat," said Dr. Julie Waddell of Omaha, who has injected the drugs into dozens of patients, including herself. Side effects are minimal, she said — some bruising and swelling are common — and she thinks the results are exciting.
"I've never had this flat of an abdomen, and I've had kids," Waddell said.
Doctors administering the procedure typically use a combination of chemicals. The chemicals themselves have been federally approved for use in some drugs. But the precise combinations and treatment regimes used for lipo-dissolve have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and are left up to individual doctors and pharmacists.
States such as Nebraska, Kansas and Nevada are trying to ban the procedure, with Kansas already banning the most popular combination injection.
On the surface, melting away fat "sounds terrific and may well turn out to be terrific," said Dr. Alan Gold, president-elect of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, who practices in Great Neck, N.Y.
"We have an overweight population that is looking for things other than diet and exercise to help them lose the weight," Gold said.
But so far the drugs offer a "poorly understood, potentially beneficial treatment that has an unknown number of side effects," Gold said. "It's really sort of a Wild West out there with this."
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery warn people to avoid the treatments, saying they are scientifically unproven and that the ingredients are poorly defined, leading to complications that can include infections, inflamed tissue and tissue death.
The process, technically called injection lipolysis, dates to the late 1960s in Europe, when doctors experimented with a combination of drugs to dissolve lipids in the blood. It gained traction there and South America, and started getting popular in the United States in the past few years, so far primarily in the Midwest.
You can be the first to comment on this story.