The Fat In Your Face Ages At Different Rates
Thinking about getting a facelift?
If you think your entire face is getting old, think again.
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered that we have distinct compartments of fat in our faces that age at different rates.
According to a report published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the fat in your face is not one connected mass that gets weighed down by gravity and causes sagging skin.
Instead, your face has distinct units of fat around the eyes, forehead, cheeks, and mouth. How you age depends on how these separate compartments of fat change as you get older.
The researchers determined this by injecting different dyes into the facial cavities of 30 cadavers.
Even after 24 hours, the dyes stayed in separate compartments as though there were boundaries around them. If we had only one connected mass of fat in our faces, the dyes should have flowed through the entire face.
When you’re young, there’s a smooth transition between these compartments of fat.
But as you get older, there are volume losses and gains which change the contours of your face. These compartments of fat also reposition themselves.
Over time, this causes wrinkles and sagging skin.
Each part of your face ages differently – from your forehead to your eyes to your cheeks to your mouth.
By understanding how the fat in your face ages, plastic surgeons will be able to develop better approaches to rejuvenating your skin.
They’ll be able to target the trouble areas of your face, possibly using injectible fillers to add volume only where needed.
They may also develop new or improved cosmetic or reconstructive surgery techniques.
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