A North Vancouver clinic is offering a new treatment to help people literally burn off their stubborn belly fat.
RSVP Beauty Clinic's new machine, Vanquish, the first in B.C., uses radiofrequency to heat up fat cells until they die, a natural process called apoptosis.
Dr. Giselle Villar, owner of RSVP and acting department head of obstetric anesthesia at BC Women's Hospital, says the new technology reduces fat by killing the cells permanently.
"It was created specially for abdominal fat, for people who want to lose about one to four inches of abdominal fat," says Villar. "It's not for people who are morbidly obese or people who have fat that's distributed all over the body."
Vanquish works by selectively heating fat cells, or adipose tissue, to between approximately 44 C and 45 C, while the surrounding areas remain a few degrees cooler. The machine does not come into direct contact with the body. Instead, the machine's half-moon shaped arm hovers over the skin, covering an area of approximately 10 inches, or about 25 centimetres.
Treatments last for 30 minutes, are spread about a week apart and come with a hefty price tag of $2,500 for four treatments. Villar says four to six treatments are ideal.
The technology is based on conductivity, or how much heat accumulates within the cell, and the type of cell tissue.
"The skin and the muscle, they conduct 10 to 20 times more than the fat cells, so the heat is not going to accumulate in the skin or in the muscle," says Villar. "If you touch the patient's skin, it's going to be about 100, 101 degrees (approximately 37.9 C to 38 C) but the fat cells will go up to 120 degrees (approximately 49 C) and that heat is going to burn the cell, it's going to destroy the cell."
The side effects are minimal but can include skin redness and a warm sensation at the treatment site.
Patients with prior health conditions, including heart disease and diabetes, can use the machine, but Villar says people with pacemakers or any other metal in the body cannot, though some types of orthopedic replacements might be OK.
"It's non-invasive, there's no down time, it's completely painless," she says. "The only feeling that the patient feels is a warm feeling, like a warm blanket or a heating pad."
According to the Mayo Clinic's website, so-called "belly fat" is made up of two types of fat, subcutaneous and visceral. Subcutaneous is more cosmetic, while visceral, an inter-abdominal fat that surrounds the organs, can be dangerous.
Dr. Ali Zentner, a specialist in internal medicine and obesity, says these types of treatments are truly esthetic procedures.
"Any kind of subcutaneous fat removal does not offer metabolic benefits of actual weight loss," says Zentner. "So physically removing fat from the body, whether it's by a plastic surgery or a liposuction or a laser, doesn't offer the metabolic benefits of actual weight loss."
Villar says Vanquish is more for people who already have a good diet and exercise regimen, but have "that stubborn little bulge that doesn't go away."
If a patient puts on weight, she says, they will gain it back in another part of the body but not in the treated area. "It's not like some older treatments that they would decrease the fat content of the cell but the cell would still stay there," says Villar. "You might accumulate fat in other parts of your body (if) you put on weight, but you shouldn't accumulate at that same spot. Of course you're not killing all the cells so you might get a little bit of belly fat again, but it will probably have a different shape."
Clients are assessed on diet and exercise, as well as by checking their history, says Villar, to see what kinds of methods they might have already tried.
"If the patient has fat distributed evenly in the arms and the abdomen, the legs, then it's not going to make a big difference," she says. "It's going to make a big difference only at the abdominal level."
But Zentner says going for a walk every day for 45 minutes is going to offer more cardiovascular benefits, cancer prevention and glycemic control than spending money on a procedure for the abdomen."In my experience as a physician, a quick fix is typically the first sign that something is not going to be that effective," says Zentner. "Visceral fat's the problem. This doesn't even touch visceral."
For more information about RSVP Beauty Clinic, visit rsvpbeautyclinic.com.
