Liposuction not a solution for weight; fat comes back

The womans hips bulged in unsightly saddlebags. Then she had liposuction and,presto,those saddlebags disappeared. Photo after photo on plastic surgery websites make liposuction look easy,its results transformative.

GINA KOLATA

The womans hips bulged in unsightly saddlebags. Then she had liposuction and,presto,those saddlebags disappeared. Photo after photo on plastic surgery websites make liposuction look easy,its results transformative. It has become the most popular plastic surgery,with more than 4,50,000 operations a year,each costing a few thousand dollars.

But does the fat come back? And if it does,where does it show up? Until now,no one knew for sure. But a new study,led by Drs. Teri L. Hernandez and Robert H. Eckel of the University of Colorado,has answered those questions. And what he found is not good news.

In the study,the researchers randomly assigned nonobese women to have liposuction on their protuberant thighs and lower abdomen or to refrain from having the procedure,serving as controls. As compensation,the women who were control subjects were told that when the study was over,after they learned the results,they could get liposuction if they still wanted it. For them,the price would also be reduced from the going rate.

The result,published in the latest issue of Obesity,was that fat came back after it was suctioned out. It took a year,but it all returned. But it did not reappear in the womens thighs. Instead,Dr Eckel said,it was redistributed upstairs, mostly in the upper abdomen,but also around the shoulders and triceps of the arms.

Dr Felmont Eaves III,a plastic surgeon in Charlotte,and president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery,said the study was very well done, and the results were surprising.

Obesity researchers said they are not surprised that the womens fat came back. The body,they say defends its fat. If you lose weight,even by dieting,it comes back. And,the study showed,if you suck out the fat with liposuction,even if its only a pound,as it was for subjects in the study,it still comes back. Its another chapter in the You cant fool Mother Nature story, said Dr. Rudolph Leibel,an obesity researcher at Columbia University.