Reducing Long-Term Fat Through CoolSculpting
As people get older, it can become harder to shift the body fat that can often accumulate as a result of sedentary lifestyles or health problems that make it harder to lose weight or keep weight off. There are many potential solutions to excess fat. The most popular – exercise & diet – are still the healthiest and most preferred solutions for people in conjunction with a healthy lifestyle.
However, these will be difficult for some people and a range of other surgical and non-surgical options exist. One of the most common surgical interventions in recent decades has been liposuction, and although quite effective is also invasive and not without risks.
More recently, CoolSculpting has been increasing in popularity, due to its non-invasive and long-lasting properties that can help people to lose weight and to keep that weight off permanently.
What is Coolsculpting
Coolsculpting is a form of cryolipolysis, with CoolSculpting being a particular, branded form of the procedure. Coolsculpting is non-invasive, which means that the body does not need to be cut up in any way, nor any needles injected in order for a treatment to take place.
Coolsculpting has an advantage over diet and exercise in that it is possible to target particular areas of the body more easily and swiftly, for example fat over the stomach or on the thighs quicker than diet and exercise, which may not be so particular where the body takes fat from when burning it.
With CoolSculpting, a particular part of the body is isolated, for example rolls of stomach fat, for treatment. The cryolipolysis treatment works by vacuuming the skin above the fat cells to be treated with a special applicator, usually trapping the skin between two special cooling panels. The whole procedure takes about one hour, and most people report little more than a tugging sensation during the treatment.
This in turn cools the fat cells with the intention being to kill off those fat cells and to reduce the amount of fat in the area by doing so. This works because fat cells respond differently to other cells in the same region, and the cooling treatment that can destroy the fat cells will not damage other cells in the area, leaving the rest of the area intact whilst fat cells are killed off and disposed of by the body, leaving the area with a lower level of fat.
Coolsculpting therefore can help to remove body fat and contour the body into a more aesthetically-pleasing shape.
Does it work?
This process usually takes between 4-6 months to have its full effect after the treatment, and it is not uncommon for an area that has been treated to have a reduction in fat of around 20%. Most people will see this effect after a treatment, although results will vary from person to person. It will be most effective in patients where they are unlikely to replicate the weight gain (for example, by overeating) in the time period where the CoolSculpting is taking effect after the treatment.
Many people have reported success with individual or multiple treatments, and the risks are much smaller than with other more invasive procedures such as liposuction. Some patients have reported that after the procedure they have felt a tugging sensation from where the skin was held between the cooling panels, and others have reported sagging skin after the procedure. This latter issue is because CoolSculpting is a treatment on the fat cells below the skin and not the skin itself, so where fat has been reduced the skin will neither be reduced nor tightened.
Research studies have shown that somewhere between 10 and 28% of fat reduction is possible through CoolSculpting, and that it is relatively safe. The variance in success of the procedure should be taken as a reminder that results will vary from person to person, and that there may be a number of different health and lifestyle factors that can make the procedure more or less successful in individual patients. This is an important consideration when a single treatment can reach into the hundreds of dollars.
The non-invasive and non-surgical nature of CoolSculpting means that it is relatively low risk and worth a try for most individuals, particularly those who are unable to manage their weight successfully through diet and exercise, although there are potential risks and complications that should also be considered.
What are the risks?
Approximately 1% of people in a study reported post-treatment complications as a result of CoolSculpting and other cryolipolysis treatments. The most common post-treatment complication that was reported was having less sensation in the area that that was treated than was present in that area before treatment. For example, someone having had a treatment to reduce stomach fat may have some feeling of continual numbness in the stomach area after CoolSculpting.
Other occasional complications included bruising and swelling, increased sensitivity in the area, pain localized to that particular area, or redness of skin. Although these can be distressing or discomforting to the individual patient, they are not major complications, which are present in other, particularly surgical, procedures.
The relatively minor complications that can occur after CoolSculpting, combined with the lack of frequency of their occurrence, should be taken as an indication of the overall safety of CoolSculpting and other cryolipolysis procedures, although someone considering CoolSculpting should consider the likelihood and likely severity of any potential complications prior to any treatment taking place. Discussions could also take place with the clinic providing the treatment as to any measures that can be taken to minimise the possibility of side-effects.
Summary
Research and the evidence of satisfied patients has shown that CoolSculpting is a safe, non-invasive procedure that can effectively reduce fat levels in targeted areas over a period of time. The risks of CoolSculpting are both minimal, uncommon and relatively minor, meaning that it certainly something that patients should consider as an option in a weight-loss regimen. A number of clinics around the country are able to do the treatment professionally and safely.
