Obesity and Large-Volume Liposuction
What do you think obesity is? You probably think of it as a state in which you have gained weight from eating more than other people, and one that can surely be fixed if you keep up with exercise and diet. In fact, it is true that most people in Korea think of obesity as nothing more than "having put on weight." As society advances, people's lifestyles have changed, and efficiency has come to matter more than healthy living, so the obesity rate among Korean adults has been rising rapidly in recent years.
According to the "2005 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey" report, the obese population among Korean adults aged 20 and over reached 26.3% in 1998, 30.6% in 2001, and 31.7% in 2005, and the trend is now rising even more clearly.
There is a condition called metabolic syndrome (Metabolic syndrome X). It is a syndrome with test findings such as high blood pressure, hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, elevated free fatty acids, high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, and microalbuminuria, which eventually leads to various cardiovascular diseases such as non-insulin-dependent diabetes, hypertension, and arteriosclerosis. The risk factor for metabolic syndrome is obesity, and there are reports that 68–72% of diabetes cases are caused by obesity. Addressing obesity is therefore one important way to help prevent arteriosclerotic disease, the leading cause of death in humans. As the obese population grows and obese people become a common sight, people's attitudes toward obesity have become more tolerant, and they no longer see obesity as something serious.
However, I believe that in Korea, too, obesity needs to be recognized medically not as something that simply comes from lifestyle habits, but as a "disease." In fact, the United States, one of the countries with high obesity rates, recognizes obesity as a serious social problem: many people are treated surgically for obesity, insurance covers it in severe cases, and, troubled by the high obesity rate, the country is steadily searching for ways to improve the situation.
If we keep viewing obesity merely as a lifestyle error and leave it untreated, then beyond the health risks of obesity, people may also struggle socially because of lost self-confidence and stress about their body shape. I think it is important to actively recognize and understand this, and, along with personal management, for society as well to see obesity not with pity or blame but as part of a "disease" that should be treated, and to view treatments such as liposuction surgery in a positive light.
Ways to address severe obesity include diet therapy, exercise therapy, and so on. There are also surgical options, such as bariatric surgery, which removes part of the stomach or bands the stomach. Besides these surgical options, you may also consider large-volume liposuction.
Thanks to steady technical progress and the establishment of academic theory, liposuction today can be performed safely, and surgery under local anesthesia alone has become entirely possible. However, it is true that conventional liposuction struggled to remove large amounts of fat, so it was performed only for body contouring in people of normal weight or slightly overweight. Large-volume liposuction cannot be managed with local anesthesia alone, so it required general anesthesia, and because a single doctor had to operate alone, surgery took longer and the risk of complications rose. As a result, large-volume liposuction became a procedure that was inevitably avoided.
However, with Venus Clinic's two-doctor liposuction technique and sedation anesthesia, surgery time even for people with severe obesity has been shortened to about the average surgery time for people of normal weight, and patients can go home after 1–2 hours of recovery. Because two doctors operate, there is physical stamina to spare, allowing not only thorough fat removal but also superficial liposuction to tighten loose skin after surgery, so that in many cases patients are satisfied with the result without needing skin excision.
Large-volume liposuction should be performed by a doctor with extensive liposuction experience. Two-doctor liposuction, in which two doctors operate together on such a procedure, can be described as a new approach that allows doctors to perform more meticulous surgery while removing large volumes of fat.
In addition, people with severe obesity find it hard to diet and exercise. Once body fat is reduced surgically, the body's basic energy use decreases so appetite becomes smaller, and mobility improves so physical activity becomes easier, which makes dieting easier. Rather than the yo-yo effect — struggling up a high mountain, barely reaching the top, and then giving up from exhaustion — it is like taking an elevator easily to the top and then walking down without strain: after liposuction, it becomes easier to start a diet.
In conclusion, large-volume liposuction removes excess fat tissue that has reached a harmful level, reducing the insulin resistance (insulin insentitivity) caused by fat tissue, and may thereby help lower the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
In other words, we can say that large-volume liposuction at Venus Clinic is undertaken not merely as cosmetic surgery but with the aim of maintaining and improving health. Of course, the most important thing after large-volume liposuction will be the effort to maintain and reduce weight through healthy eating habits and lifestyle.
It is now important to recognize obesity not as a temporary symptom but as a disease that must be improved through steady effort, and to act on that. Why not look around you and offer people with severe obesity who are struggling with dieting a chance to build both health and a beautiful figure?
[ Dr. Jung, Director, Venus Clinic, Bucheon ]
