Liposuction is a surgical procedure that uses suction to remove fat from specific areas of the body, such as the stomach, hips, thighs, buttocks, arms, or neck. It is a popular cosmetic surgery performed worldwide, with the goal of contouring and shaping the body for a more desirable appearance. However, there are many misperceptions about what liposuction can and can’t do, and who can benefit from the procedure.
What is Liposuction?
Liposuction is a minimally invasive surgical procedure that physically removes subcutaneous (under the skin) fat deposits through a device called a cannula. The surgeon makes small incisions in the skin and inserts a suction device attached to a small, stainless steel instrument called a cannula into the fatty areas between the skin and the muscle. The surgeon will move the cannula around inside of the body to break up or liquefy your fat. Then, they’ll remove excess fat with a suction pipe or large syringe.
Types of Liposuction
There are different types of liposuction procedures available to meet different goals of your treatment. Different types of liposuction include:
- Tumescent liposuction: This is the most common liposuction procedure. Your surgeon injects a saline (salt water) solution into your fatty areas. The mixture contains medicines such as epinephrine, which shrinks your blood vessels. This solution helps your surgeon remove fat easily and reduces blood loss. Other medications are sometimes included to provide pain relief.
- Ultrasound-assisted liposuction (UAL): Your surgeon uses ultrasonic energy via a metal rod placed underneath your skin to liquefy your fat before removing it from your body.
- Vibration Amplification of Sound Energy at Resonance (VASER): VASER liposuction uses a stainless steel tool (cannula) with grooves and ultrasound waves to easily break up and remove fat cells and fat from your body. This is a type of UAL.
- Suction-assisted liposuction: This is a traditional form of liposuction that uses a vacuum to remove fat from your body.
- Power-assisted liposuction (PAL): Power-assisted liposuction uses a small, stainless steel tool (cannula) that moves back and forth over your fat to break it up.
- Laser-assisted liposuction (LAL): Laser-assisted liposuction only needs a small incision in your skin to perform the procedure. During LAL, the surgeon puts a laser fiber through a small cut in the skin and breaks down fat deposits.
Liposuction vs. Weight Loss
Liposuction is not considered an overall weight-loss method or a weight-loss alternative. It is a body contouring procedure, not a weight loss procedure. Any weight loss as a result of liposuction is incidental.
Traditional weight loss, on the other hand, is brought about by burning more calories than you eat over an extended period of time, generally through a combination of diet and exercise. This approach reduces the size of fat cells by forcing your body to tap into existing fat deposits for energy. The body areas where you lose fat will be determined by a number of factors, including genetics and age - but you cannot control the areas where you lose (or gain) weight.
Read also: Weight Loss and Liposuction
How Much Weight Can You Lose with Liposuction?
The amount of fat that can be safely removed in a single liposuction session varies, often hinging on individual factors like overall health and the specific areas being treated. Typically, surgeons adhere to a guideline of not removing more than five liters of fat to ensure safety and effectiveness.
In general, liposuction will cause you to lose inches, but not necessarily pounds. The total weight of the fat that can be safely removed during a liposuction procedure is generally somewhere in the range of 1-5 pounds. Liposuction removes fat cells in a single area, which can cause the impression that it must remove a large amount of weight - however this is not the case. Subcutaneous adipose tissue (fat under the skin) is not very dense. The amount of fat removed via liposuction will vary depending on both the patient as well as the specific problem area being treated.
Benefits of Liposuction
Liposuction is the most effective way to lose fat in targeted areas in order to sculpt and shape the body. Changing your diet can cause weight loss, but it will not allow you to change your body shape the way that liposuction does. The kind of targeted fat loss that is possible with liposuction is simply not possible through diet and exercise.
Modern laser liposuction also has the benefit of tightening the skin. By stimulating the skin with a laser during the procedure, laser lipo promotes the formation of new collagen, resulting in tighter, younger-looking skin in the treated area.
Ideal Candidates for Liposuction
Ideal patients should be in good general health and within 20-30 pounds of their ideal weight, with fat deposits in particular areas that have proven resistant to diet and exercise. Liposuction is more ideal for losing those last few stubborn fat pockets that don’t respond to diet and exercise.
Read also: Informative Guide: Liposuction Injections
Risks of Liposuction
As with any surgery, liposuction has risks. These risks include:
- Bleeding
- A reaction to anesthesia
- Contour irregularities
- Fluid buildup
- Numbness
- Infection
- Internal puncture
- Fat embolism
- Kidney and heart problems
- Lidocaine toxicity
The risk of complications rises if the surgeon works on larger body surfaces or does multiple procedures during the same operation.
Preparing for Liposuction
Before the procedure, discuss with your surgeon what to expect from the surgery. Your surgeon will review your medical history and ask about any medical conditions you may have. Your surgeon will recommend that you stop taking certain medicines, such as blood thinners or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), at least a week before surgery.
Recovery After Liposuction
Expect some pain, swelling, and bruising after the procedure. After the procedure, the surgeon may leave your incisions open or put in temporary drains to help fluid drain out of your body. Most people need to wear tight garments after surgery to help reduce swelling. You may need to wait a few days before going back to work.
Results of Liposuction
After liposuction, swelling typically goes away within a few weeks. By this time, the treated area should look less bulky. Skin loses some firmness as people age, but liposuction results usually last a long time if you maintain your weight. If you gain weight after liposuction, your fat levels may change.
Read also: Metabolic Health & Liposuction
Liposuction and Metabolic Profile
Evidence showing that adipose tissue is a metabolically active tissue has led to the suggestion that liposuction could be a viable method for improving metabolic profile through the immediate loss of adipose tissue. However, the immediate liposuction-induced increase in the proportion of visceral to subcutaneous adipose tissue could be detrimental to metabolism, because a high proportion of visceral to subcutaneous adipose tissue is associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
The results of studies investigating the effects of liposuction on the metabolic profile are inconsistent, however, with most studies reporting either no change or improvements in one or more cardiovascular risk factors.
Liposuction and Exercise
Exercise training improves insulin sensitivity, inflammatory balance, lipid oxidation, and adipose tissue distribution; increases or preserves the fat-free mass; and increases total energy expenditure. Thus, liposuction and exercise appear to directly affect metabolism in similar ways, which suggests a possible interaction between these two strategies.
One could suggest that exercise training associated with liposuction could attenuate or even block the possible compensatory fat deposition in intact depots or regrowth of the fat mass and exert an additive or even a synergistic effect to liposuction on improving insulin sensitivity and the inflammatory balance, resulting in an improvement of cardiovascular risk factors.
Liposuction Alternatives
Liposuction and tummy tucks aren’t the only body contouring procedures to eliminate stubborn fat. There are non-surgical body contouring options, including CoolSculpting. It is an FDA-approved cosmetic procedure that permanently eliminates fall cells by freezing them. The body naturally absorbs the treated fat cells, leaving behind a more appealing body shape. As a non-surgical procedure, there is little to no downtime, and patients can resume regular daily activities immediately after treatment. No anesthesia is used, and it can be completed in 30-60 minutes.
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