One of the strangest ideas I ever heard of in medical school was that you could stick a tube under someone’s skin and suck their fat out.  Why would anyone think that could work?  Who had the nerve to try that for the first time on someone?

Well, nearly 30 years later, I know that it does work to some extent.  As it is one of the most frequent operations in the country, I am glad of that.  Suction removal of fat, ultrasound assisted, or laser-assisted removal can remove a reasonable amount of fat from under someone’s skin.  For those people who happen to have an abnormal deposit of fat, say one where it seems to run in the family, liposuction may help.  Notice I said “reasonable” amount.  If one removes a large amount of fat, liposuction becomes a bigger and different operation.  One must be aware that fat removal becomes a less benign operation as the volume of fat being removed goes up.  For it to be successful in most people’s opinion, liposuction requires relatively elastic skin.  Contrary to many ads and claims I have seen, liposuction does not appear, to me, to tighten skin.  An aged person, a person who has lost lots of weight, or one whose skin is loose,  are poor candidates for liposuction.  Good candidates are relatively healthy people near their ideal weight who have discreet fatty deposits.