Fat Grafting: Breathing New Life into Face Lifts

Fat grafting is becoming more popular these days, and for good reason. Results continue to prove this procedure could very well be a game changer in the field of plastic surgery. Dr. James Namnoum, a board certified plastic surgeon from Atlanta, sat down to discuss how the use of fat transfer in face lifts gives patients the most healthy, beautiful result.

By: James D. Namnoum, MD
and Adam McMillon
ThePlasticSurgeryChannel.com

What is it that makes a face beautiful?

It’s easy to see someone and think how beautiful their face looks. Whether it is a celebrity with good genes or a person in the prime of their life that has yet to age. We notice beauty, even if we don’t understand it’s components. “The operations we’ve used to correct facial aging in the past have fell well short of the mark, I think,” says Dr. Namnoum. “Why is that? Because they were designed with a limited understanding of what constitutes youth and what constitutes age, and how we move from one to the other.” What is it that differs between a young face and one that has aged? “A young face has fat, it has beautiful skin tone,” says Namnoum. “It’s not a face that’s pulled or stretched or tightened, it’s a face that has softness. Softness is what we associate with beauty.”

Using Fat to Restore Youthful Beauty

Fat grafting as a source of volume has become a popular procedure for plastic surgeons because of successful results. By utilizing a patient’s own fat, the volume lost in the face is restored with what is missing: fat. In addition to a restoration of volume, cells from your fat work to improve skin tone that has also began to succumb to age. “Now, because our use of fat all over the face to reverse the changes that occur (which are frankly the loss of fat), we’re now able to design operations that are finally restorative,” says Namnoum.

A Healthy Restoration

Everyone has seen the tight, pulled faces of celebrities who underwent a face lift procedure to restore their face. The negative association of that windblown look with a legitimate procedure by a board certified plastic surgeon is anything but the truth. “We’re going to make you look healthy,” says Namnoum. “We’re going to give you the appearance of wellness. You’re not going to look pulled and tightened, you’re going to look well. We’re able to do this now because of fat grafting; the restoration of lost fat in the face with your own fat. For me, this has become the real critical aspect in terms of correcting facial aging.”