Permanent Weight Loss Without Surgery
British scientists claim to have developed a technique that uses ultrasound and cryolipolysis for permanent weight loss by freezing the fat cells. The high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and cryolipolysis has the potential to achieve permanent weight loss without surgery, by killing fat cells over a period of 3-4months and thus the flab disappears. The treatment would cost somewhere between 1,500-2,000 pounds. Until now liposuction (surgical excision of fat) was the only permanent way of removing fat.
This treatment would not be suitable for morbidly obese patients. It will help people to get rid of the little remaining fat around the hips and buttocks who have managed to lose some weight through dieting. Senior vascular surgeon, Mark Whiteley said, "The technique would be effective for destroying small areas of stubborn fat. Our results have been very good and, from the previously published studies, it appears that HIFU and cryolipolysis -- or fat freezing -- are the only two methods of non-surgical fat removal that show any promise. Other techniques using lasers of other types of ultrasound don't work because they only damage fat cells, rather than destroying them, so the cells simply grow back."
However Professor of clinical biochemistry at Cambridge University, Stephen O'Rahilly, has warned that this treatment could have damaging effects on the body. He said, "As a cosmetic treatment this would be fine, but if you kill off the fat cells on someone's stomach and they start to regain weight, you would run the risk of the fat being stored in the heart or liver, where it could be very dangerous and cause real organ damage."