Love handles
Cosmetic Surgery - Plastic Surgery - Aesthetic Medicine - Reconstructive Surgery
Love handles are fat deposits that settle in the form of rolls of fat located on the hips thus causing their enlargement.
Men are more affected than women. These unsightly bulges can appear in
spite of a normal healthy weight, after weight loss or even physical
exercise. When they settle in they do so permanently and no diet is
really effective in eliminating love handles.
The abnormally high development of adipocytes or fat cells in some
parts of the human body is the source of fatty deposits causing these
love handles. This build-up is called cellulite. In the presence of
fatty deposits, the skin takes on a soft and flaccid quality, which
looks like «orange peel", dimpled and grainy.
The lymphatic system should normally eliminate the water and toxins
that accumulate in fatty tissue by drainage, but this system is not a
pump and depends on muscle contraction, not the bloodstream. The
formation of fat is more rapid than its removal by muscle contraction.
The more time passes, the more fatty deposits harden and become
significant. Cellulite develops.
The presence of these fatty deposits is often linked to more sedentary
lifestyles with a lack of exercise. Weight gain is a major factor in
the appearance of fatty deposits but successive diets, alternating
weight loss and weight gain may also be a factor aggravating cellulite.
Amongst the factors contributing to the development of fatty deposits
are alcohol and tobacco.
Depending on the size of the fat clusters in love handles, there are two main techniques:
- If love handles are not too significant, we use the morpholiposculpture which is an alternative thinning technique to liposuction that does not involve invasive surgery. The risks are reduced for the patient as is the pain. Morpholiposculpture is a remodelling and refinement of the silhouette. Morpholiposculpture can treat different types of fat rolls (localized lipodystrophy) such as love handles, double chins and saddlebags. Morpholiposculpture is aimed at both men and women and should be performed only by qualified plastic surgeons in a medical setting.
- If the fat deposits that make up the love handles are too significant, we must resort to liposuction performed by surgeons trained in plastic aesthetic and reconstructive surgery in order to remove them. The principle of liposuction is to introduce, in the areas to be treated, through very small incisions, blunt cannulas with a number of holes at the end. These very fine cannulas allow injury to the skin overlying the areas to be treated by liposuction to be avoided. The techniques of liposuction can be applied to all parts of the body (treatment of saddle bags, hips, abdomen, thighs, calves, ankles, arms but also the face: to deal with a double chin or the outline of the face) and can be combined with other surgical procedures. The qualified plastic surgeon will assess the capacity of the skin to retract, avoiding the creation of unwanted creases or waves by changing any imbalance in the container/contained ratio. . Turning to a qualified plastic surgeon can prevent complications or help to treat them effectively.