Renaissance Plastic Surgery

Recently, The New York Times published an article titled, "With Liposuction, the Belly Finds What the Thighs Lose" in which they discuss a study published in Obesity: A Research Journal. The study concludes that, when nutrition and exercise are held constant, patients who have had liposuction to remove fat in the thighs or lower abdomen will see an increase in the fat in areas where liposuction was not performed, particularly the upper trunk and arms. However, the areas where liposuction was performed will not experience the same increase.  The article also states:

    "If you lose weight, even by dieting, [fat] comes back."

From a plastic surgeon's standpoint, liposuction and liposculpting are not considered weight loss procedures. These procedures are designed to contour certain areas of the body to improve the overall shape in that region. However, I am frequently asked by patients if they will gain weight back in the liposuctioned area following surgery. This recent study examined exactly that question. It primarily looked at the effects of liposuction in the area that the procedure was performed, as well as other areas of the body. Intuitively, it makes sense that liposuction will reduce the number of fat cells in a particular area and for that reason, if patients gain weight following surgery, one would expect that the weight would be gained back in a different location. The surprising finding was that patients tended to gain weight even if all of the variables such as diet and exercise were held constant. In other words, this study seems to imply that everyone's body has a certain amount of fat that is necessary and even if a portion of it is removed, the fat will reaccumulate in other areas to maintain that overall amount of total body fat. Ultimately liposuction is about body contouring and reducing the fat deposition in a given area. Provided that the reaccumulation of fat does not create an unsightly bulge in another location, which has not occurred in millions of patients to date, then individuals considering liposuction should have nothing to worry about.