The quest for beauty—whether skin deep or in the eye of the beholder—not only carries high costs. It also can be health risky. Jane Brody reminds us in the New York Times that due “to a lack of federal regulations, the watchword for consumers of cosmetics and personal care products should be caveat emptor: Let….
Continue ReadingCosmetic Treatments
When placenta-eating mom sickens baby, has star health bunk gone too far?
Mocking the vanity, self-absorption, and stupidity of the rich and celebrities may be too feckless a sport. But the tragic spin-offs of the sweeping misinformation their hype mechanisms can generate sometimes just cannot be ignored. If you can take it, New York magazine has put out a detailed story on “The Wellness Epidemic,” a deep….
Continue ReadingA gut check on lap-band surgery, women’s mistreatment in medicine
They once got a ton of hype with radio, TV, and print ads, as well as billboard campaigns by proponents who later proved to be nothing less than sketchy. But the much-touted lap-band weight surgeries have fallen out of favor. The number of the procedures performed annually has nose-dived. Researchers, based on a longer view,….
Continue ReadingRash of price hikes for dermatological drugs — it could make your skin crawl
The adolescent misery of acne and the irritation of any itchy rash might not rank high as maladies requiring major medical interventions. Still, patients seeking dermatological care for a range of issues may be feeling a new pain — in their pocketbooks — as specialists nationwide report that they and those in their care are….
Continue ReadingHow to Shop Smartly for a Plastic Surgeon
When a celebrity “has work done” and the job goes wrong, it’s splashed all over the tabloids. When it happens to you, it doesn’t make the news, but the results are equally devastating. Dr. Patrick Hsu, a plastic surgeon, recently wrote on KevinMD.com that the number of people having plastic surgery is increasing, and that….
Continue Reading‘Medical Spa’ Workers Infect Patients with Potentially Lethal Bacteria
The patients arrived at the weight-loss clinics for liposuction, and left with an unwelcome add-on: streptococcus infection. The cause, a study showed, was probably a staff unaware of or unwilling to perform proper infection control. The strain of streptococcus that the 13 people contracted is a bacterium that can cause relatively mild illnesses, such as….
Continue ReadingLoose Laser Surgery Regulations Put Patients at Risk
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), 1.1 million laser hair-removal procedures and 509,000 laser skin resurfacing procedures were performed in the U.S. last year. In light of these popular treatments, a new report published in JAMA Dermatology reinforces the “buyer beware” warning, especially when considering a cosmetic laser procedure. A lot of….
Continue ReadingDocs Practice Cosmetic Surgery When They Don’t Know How
“Everyone’s a critic,” the saying goes. Applied to the practice of medicine, that sentiment might become “Everyone’s a cosmetic surgeon.” And unless someone is board-certified in plastic/cosmetic surgery, that’s a far more threatening reality than the mere annoyance of opinionated people who can’t refrain from spouting off. As reported in USA Today, only 21 states….
Continue ReadingI Know! Let’s Invent — and Cure — the Disease of ‘Runner’s Face!’
Liposuction Produces Only Temporary Weight Loss
A pioneering new study of the popular liposuction surgery finds that the fat which a surgeon sucks out from one part of the body gets added back in elsewhere by Mother Nature. The study published in the journal Obesity found that within a year, all the fat suctioned out in a liposuction was regained by….
Continue Reading