Not elder law: how faces age…

The longstanding idea that the entirehuman face ages uniformly is in need of a facelift, say researchers atUT Southwestern Medical Center who have found that multiple, distinctcompartments of fat in the face age at different rates.  The findings, published in a recent issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery,challenge previously held theories regarding aging and may offer newways to help turn back the clock, UT Southwestern plastic surgeons say.  “For hundreds of years, everyone has believed that the fat on the faceis one confluent mass, which eventually gets weighed down by gravity,creating sagging skin,” said Dr. Joel Pessa,assistant professor of plastic surgery and the study’s lead author. “Inour studies, however, we were surprised to find that this is not thecase; the face is made up of individual fat compartments that gain andlose fat at different times and different rates as we age.”  The study involved injecting different types of dye into facialcavities of 30 cadavers. Despite at least 24 hours of settling time,the dye, rather than permeating the entire face, stayed in separateareas — showing that individual facial compartments have boundariesbetween them that act like fences. These fences, which seem to becomposed of fibrous tissue, allow the face to maintain its blood supplyshould it become injured.

Read more at http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept353744/files/398396.html

Ed:  I’m more interested in whether they have figured out how to stop it. …