Plastic Surgery Face Lift.. Or Stem Cells From Korea?

The same company in Korea that's cloning dogs and cats is now offering anti-aging treatemtns that are being touted as a delaying tactic for plastic surgery and face lifts:

Those who view aging as an ugly inconvenience usually turn to plastic surgery to nip and tuck their troubles away. Little do they know the answer for reversing the aging process might be found in their own stomachs.

Run in conjunction with the Beijing Tian Tan Puhua Hospital, which offers stem cell therapies to last-hope Parkinson’s and spinal cord injury patients, the RNL Puhua Plastic and Cosmetic Medical Center offers stem cell therapy for the face that may reverse the aging process using the patient’s own body matter.

Using a treatment developed by Korean company RNL Bio—the same company that clones dogs and sells them on the international market for upwards of USD$150,000—the Puhua Center offers non-invasive beauty treatment alongside traditional plastic surgery staples like liposuction, face peels and eye tucks.

For a cool ¥28,000, patients can have fat cells removed from their abdomens using a needle and local anesthetic. Two weeks later, after doctors have grown a crop of stem cells from the collected fat cells, patients return to have doctors inject the stem cells into their faces in a series of shots that plump out skin, erase wrinkles and generally take a decade off your appearance, says Ingela Palomäki, a former Beijing Tian Tan Puhua Hospital marketing representative and current director of Fortune Cookie, a stem cell product import/export company. Included in the price is a stem-cell top-up six months later. Patients can also have their stem cells stored at the clinic for ¥1,500 per year. Stem cells have a shelf life of about 15 years. The clinic is currently the only place in the world offering the therapy, Palomäki says.

RNL Bio flew in aging South Korean celebrity Kyung-gyu Lee for a test-run of the treatment at the clinic’s inauguration less than half a year ago.

“Koreans are flocking here by the busloads for the treatment,” Palomäki says. “It’s buying time.”

Because the treatment uses the patient’s own cells, there is no risk of the body rejecting the injections, she points out. The only concern is that the stem cells could copy cancer cells in the body—so cancer patients and survivors will want to take a pass.

While the U.S. and other countries weigh the benefits of stem cell therapies, many patients from abroad are already coming to Beijing for therapies they hope might make them forever young.

This use of technology solutionos around bio-engineering and stem cells could well percipitate a break through. Nanotechnology is an other area that offers the promise of using a nonsurgical medical technology in lieu of traditional plastic surgery.

Thermage and Botox are examples of technology that sprang from other areas of medicine in just this way.

Plastic Surgery & Beauty

Plastic surgeons and even med spa physicians offering Restylane and Juvederm would be well intentioned to make sure that they understand the cannons of what beauty actually is. In many ways it's the elimination of asemmetry or extra 'noise' like wrinkles or pigment.

Via CNN: It's hard to pinpoint what distinguishes a gorgeous face from an average one, but some researchers are getting pretty close. Psychologist Lisa DeBruine, Ph.D., of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland says she's found that women's faces get more attractive to men when they are ovulating. "We're not entirely clear why there's this difference, but we think that the women might look healthier, have a bit of a healthier glow when they are ovulating."

Symmetry is another factor that determines a face's attractiveness. Kendra Schmid, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says there is a formula for the "perfect" face. She uses 29 different measurements to determine someone's appeal on a scale of 1 to 10.

To start, Schmid says the ratio of the length of the face to the width of the face should be 1.6, also known as the golden ratio."The face should also be divided into three equal pieces vertically," she says. "The forehead, then [the bottom of the forehead to] the nose and then from the nose to the chin."

Who's face is the most "perfect," according to Schmid's measurements? No big surprise here! "Brad Pitt's is the highest that I've ever used the [formula] on," she says. "He was a 9.3 [out of 10]."

Brad's partner, Angelina Jolie, didn't fare too badly either. "Angelina was a 7.67, and that's pretty high," Schmid says. "Most people rate about 4 to 6. ... The thing that is probably lowering her score is the thing that she's most famous for -- her full lips." Schmid says that ideally the width of a mouth should be twice the height of the lips.

Other celebrities Schmid tested were Halle Berry, who scored a 7.36, and Hugh Jackman, a 6.45. "There's never been anyone who was a perfect 10," Schmid says. "If you're out there, we're looking for you!"

Skin Clinic & Stem Cells

Via the Times: Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells

The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state. Embryonic cells can be induced in the laboratory to develop into many of the body’s major tissues.

If the technique can be adapted to human cells, researchers could use a patient’s skin cells to generate new heart, liver or kidney cells that might be transplantable and would not be rejected by the patient’s immune system. But scientists say they cannot predict when they can overcome the considerable problems in adapting the method to human cells.

Stem Cells & Cosmetic Medicine

Via ABC News: Could stem cells make you more beautiful?

The prospect is a tantalizing one. To erase wrinkles and fine lines, or to get bigger breasts, without cosmetic surgery. Forget silicone, forget collagen. All you would need is stem-cell therapy.

"Stem-cell research appears promising for medicine and particularly for plastic surgery," said Dr. Ronald Friedman, director of the West Plano Plastic Surgery Center and a board-certified plastic surgeon practicing in Plano, Tex.

New law could help Australia become leader in stem cell research

Lawmakers begin debating legislation this week that would lift a ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell research -- a bill that, if passed, could make Australia a world leader in research into diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's.

Collagens New Structure: Math for dermatologists.

MIT's new model shows collagen's structure from the atomic to the tissue scale.

An MIT researcher's mathematical model explains for the first time the distinctive structure of collagen, a material key to healthy human bone, muscles and other tissues. The new model shows collagen's structure from the atomic to the tissue scale.

An improved understanding of nature's most abundant protein could aid the search for cures to such ailments as osteoporosis, joint hyperextensibility and scurvy, all recognized as arising from diseased collagen. It could also guide engineers' development of synthetic versions of the protein, which in its healthy state is several times stronger than steel per molecule.

..."The response of materials to tensile loading has been studied in materials science for computer chips, cars and buildings, but is still poorly understood for biological materials. What we are doing is looking at biological systems on a molecular level, the same way we would examine glass or metal," said Buehler. "This represents a new way of thinking about biological matter, and it may hold the key to engineering biological systems as we design man-made devices today."

Emergency Medicine: Suspended animation ready for human clinical trials?

War triggers advances in trauma medicine.

Brain damage that doesn't start for two hours?

Docs at Mass General have placed pigs in suspended animation for hours with no discernable effects. First the battlefield, then the ER. 

From CNN: Docs test 'suspended animation' as potential battlefield treatment.

 "It's a huge leap over the four or five minutes that we had to fix injuries to about two to three hours. Metabolism doesn't come to a halt. So there's still metabolic activity ongoing and the clock is still ticking, just at a slower rate," says Alam. "You buy precious time, but it's a finite amount of time...

...When a patient suffers a traumatic injury, such as a stab or gunshot wound, or a brain or head injury, Alam induces hypothermia by slowly pumping out the patient's blood and replacing it with fluid similar to that used in organ transplants. That process cools the body down gradually from the normal state of 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit).

Once the body is cooled, the patient has almost no blood, little to no brain activity and no heartbeat. The body's slowed processes give the doctor time to fix all the underlying injuries. Once the wounds are treated, the patient is gradually warmed back up, resuscitated and blood pumped back into the body. The patient slowly regains signs of life.

For information about life after a traumatic brain injury visit theheadinjurysite.com