Anti-Aging Breakthroughs: Light and Sound

 Stimulate the Senses

It doesn’t matter how stylish your hair or fabulous your dress. Sagging skin at the eyes or chin is a sure sign of Armageddon. Now, second-generation skin tightening devices are fighting back in more effective—and patient-friendly—ways than ever before. Leading the way is Ultherapy, the first ultrasound technology to receive FDA approval as a nonsurgical brow and neck lift.

Ultherapy drives sound waves into the skin’s top layers, as well as to deep muscular layers underneath. (These deeper layers are known as the SMAS, or the superficial musculoaponeurotic system.) The sound waves cause skin cells to vibrate and generate heat. Existing collagen tightens—a phenomenon called collagen remodeling—and new collagen is produced. “Over three-to-six months, this results in a lifting and tightening of loose skin,” says Dr. Sabrina Fabi, head researcher at GBK Cosmetic Laser Dermatology in San Diego.

Ultherapy is the first nonsurgical device to combine ultrasound visualization with energy.   “This treatment is the first of its kind, allowing a doctor to see the structures of the skin they are treating,” notes Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Babak Azzizzadeh. Dr. Robert Anolik of the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York prefers Ultherapy to skin tightening methods such as radiofrequency and infrared light. “I can see the effect of the energy on the bands of collagen as I treat them,” Anolik says. “This accuracy allows me to better define facial features like the jawline.”

 

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