Conventional Treatment Of Excess Storage Fat

Mesotherapy or Injection treatment

It involves injecting people with a cocktail of plant extracts, vitamins and medications (such as a drug for treating asthma). The concoction is supposed to stimulate fat cells to shed fat.

It's called mesotherapy because the injections go under the skin and are absorbed by the mesodermal, or middle, layer. Then, you're supposed to shed weight the same way you do when you diet and exercise, excreting fat in waste. But you can still regain the weight.

Mesotherapy was developed in France in 1952 and has long been popular with the European rich and famous. But it never caught on in the USA, where medical skepticism about its efficacy and safety is widespread. Among other concerns, some of the drugs involved are intended to treat something entirely different.

Dermatologists and plastic surgeons are alarmed about mesotherapy. "No one says exactly what they put into the (syringe)," says Naomi Lawrence, a derma-surgeon at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "One drug they often use, phosphatidylcholin, is unpredictable and causes extreme inflammation and swelling where injected. It is not a benign drug."

If there were studies that proved to dermatologists that this procedure works, "we'd all be using it," she says.

Even Brazil, which is less strict than the USA in drug approvals, has banned the drug for these purposes.

Mesotherapy is also not cheap. Each session costs an average of $500-$700, and a minimum 20 sessions are required, for a total price tag similar to liposuction.