BODY CONTOURING-The future is here

Body contouring is about more than just fat reduction – muscle also plays a vital role. A new breakthrough technology takes this consideration to the next level.

- Dr Riekie Smit

Normal human body composition comprises approximately 25% fat and 42% muscle tissue in males or 36% in females. There is, however, a major shift in the muscle to fat ratio of the body over the years. Muscle mass reduces with 3-5% per decade after the age of 30, and age-related muscle loss speeds up after 60, resulting in a 30-50% loss of muscle mass by the age of 80. This becomes especially visible in geriatrics, through their loss of balance and muscle weakness leading to falls and more.

Over the years, the focus in non-surgical aesthetic treatments for the body has been on reducing cellulite, fat pockets and body skin tightening. Nonsurgical treatments include mechanical massaging for lymphatic drainage and cellulite reduction and radiofrequency treatments that increase the temperature in an area to give a firming and localized metabolism-enhancing effect. Fat-freezing and ultrasound cavitation devices focus more on reducing localized fat pockets, while injection lipolysis treatments ‘dissolve’ unwanted fat pockets.

These treatments show good results and scientific data supports their efficacy, but we always see better results with cellulite and fat pocket treatments in patients following a healthy diet and exercise programme. This is because exercise contributes to weight maintenance and increased overall metabolism. As muscle mass increases, your body’s resting metabolic rate increases. In fact, you even burn more calories while sleeping.

Introducing Emsculpt As mentioned, muscles represent around 35% of the human body, but existing aesthetic treatments only address fat. Czech medical device company BTL is breaking new ground, however, with the introduction of its Emsculpt® technology, which offers a first-of-its-kind, non- invasive body sculpting and butt-lifting treatment with a dual effect – addressing both muscle and fat.