“Liposuction=Weight loss surgery?”… Will I become slim if I remove all the fat from my body?

The peak season for plastic surgery in our country is winter. However, there are plastic surgeries that are in peak season at this time. A typical example is ‘liposuction’. The search volume for liposuction is also the highest every year between June and July. This is because interest in body shape increases ahead of the summer vacation season, and the demand for liposuction increases.

What is the most commonly performed plastic surgery in the world right now? This is also ‘liposuction’. The country with the most plastic surgery in the world is the United States, followed by Brazil. In both countries, the most common surgery is liposuction. According to statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), liposuction has been the most commonly performed surgery for three consecutive years since 2021, with approximately 350,000 cases performed in 2023 alone. This is a 7% increase from 2022, and the growth rate is also among the highest.

Liposuction is called ‘liposuction’ in English. It is a word that combines lipo (fat) and suction (sucking). Since it is a surgery that delicately sculpts the proportions and lines of the body rather than simply sucking out a lot of fat, the expression ‘liposculpture’ is also widely used. Liposuction is a surgery to remove fat or change proportions in areas that are not easily resolved by diet and exercise, such as the abdomen, thighs, buttocks, sides, and arms. The satisfaction rate is high due to the dramatic effects, and the rate of patients who have had liposuction in one area also undergoing surgery in other areas is high.

Liposuction is widely performed in Korea, a world-class plastic surgery powerhouse, but it ranks relatively low compared to its global popularity. In addition, liposuction has a unique aspect in the Korean plastic surgery market. Among the various plastic surgeries, it is performed more by non-specialists than by plastic surgery specialists.

There are several reasons for this. My personal guess is that it may be because it doesn’t go well with other plastic surgeries that are mainly performed in Korea. In the US, body-related surgeries are at the top, but in Korea, facial surgeries such as eye and nose surgeries are still the most commonly performed. Body surgeries generally require large and strong physical operations, while facial surgeries require more delicate and precise techniques.

For example, if you perform liposuction in the morning, your hands will be weak, so it is not convenient to perform double eyelid surgery in the afternoon. Because the surgery requires a lot of arm strength and can cause tendonitis due to the vibration of the machine, there are concerns that performing liposuction too often will shorten the surgeon’s lifespan. As a result, it seems to have become one of the surgeries that is not preferred by anyone other than plastic surgeons who specialize in liposuction.

Liposuction is an easy procedure to get started with and has high satisfaction, but it is difficult to do well. This characteristic can cause various problems. High satisfaction is not always an advantage in surgery. Since the barrier to entry is not high, liposuction is also considered a gateway for non-specialists to enter the field of plastic surgery. As many non-specialists compete in the liposuction market, the cost of the surgery has decreased significantly and the preference of plastic surgeons has decreased. From the perspective of plastic surgeons, liposuction has the impression of being a love-hate surgery.

It is not true that all plastic surgery non-specialist surgeries are problematic. The problem is that when non-specialists enter the market in large numbers, excessive competition occurs and the risk of various side effects increases. I once asked an employee who worked at a large non-specialist liposuction clinic about the atmosphere there. “What surprised me was that they just had directors with no surgical experience perform surgeries. Those who were good at surgery would soon quit and leave, so it was always the case that they would return to a rookie director.”

Liposuction is not a simple surgery. However, I am worried that it is being taken lightly like a skin care procedure. Recently, liposuction is being performed as if it were an injection procedure for those who find surgery burdensome. In reality, it is no different from liposuction, but it seems to be a method of increasing turnover and reducing costs by using a syringe to suck only with local anesthesia. It is questionable whether it is helpful to patients.

Anyone interested in liposuction has probably heard the term ‘bio-bond’. It is a term that refers to the various situations in which tissues under the skin become hard after liposuction. It is so widely used that it is thought to be a medical term, but it is actually a new word that originated in Korea. The boundary between non-science and science begins with the ‘promise’ of expressing the same condition with the same term.

The term ‘bio-bond’ has different meanings depending on who uses it. Some say it is a clumping of body fluids, some say it is tissue damage. Some say it is an inflammatory reaction, some say it is fibrosis, some say it is scarring or adhesion. It is a term that lumps together various situations where the flesh hardens after surgery and is difficult to understand the identity or the root cause. It seems that the term has become fixed because non-medical people like the head of the consulting room used it as if it were a medical term. This ironic situation seems to reveal one aspect of the current ‘liposuction market’.

Liposuction is easy to get started with, has high satisfaction, but is difficult to do well. It is a safe surgery, but sometimes serious accidents occur. A few years ago, there was an incident where the family of a famous clothing company founder in Hong Kong died during liposuction. The doctor who performed the surgery at the time was not a plastic surgeon. There was also a case where an unskilled medical staff performed abdominal liposuction and the surgical instrument penetrated the deep layer of fat and the abdominal cavity, leading to death. However, a much more common and important problem is adhesion and unevenness caused by too shallow suction. This is why surgery by an experienced medical staff is necessary.

Fierce competition can create better services, but sometimes it can also create problems. The common mistake that surgeries that are easy to get into but difficult to do well in often make is to ‘win with quantity.’ As the number of people who want to have a slim body and have a lot of fat suction increases, they encourage this desire by saying that they will suction more.

Liposuction is not a surgery to lose weight. Liposuction cannot solve obesity or help you lose weight. It cannot replace dieting. The remaining fat cells can store more fat and become enlarged if you do not maintain proper eating and exercise habits. There are also stories that say, “They say they remove all the fat from everywhere and make you a ‘bone arm’ with only bones left.” Liposuction is a surgery that permanently removes fat from a specific area, but it does not remove all the fat from that area. It is common sense that removing more fat does not create a more beautiful body. On the contrary, excessive fat removal often causes problems such as adhesions that appear bumpy. These are also difficult to solve with reoperation.

The two most important things to keep in mind about liposuction are:

Liposuction is not a surgery that solves obesity.

Avoid areas that require a lot of fat removal.