Aging studies on identical twins

There's an interesting series of aging studies on twins in the literature recently.

The first (see here) was a series of observations made on the contributions of different factors on aging. These factors included

• smoking
• both obesity and being thin at different ages
• sun damage
• depression (?)
• divorce

The relationship of body weight is interesting, but kind of intuitive. A heavier body weight before the age of 40 was associated with an older appearance. However, in the women over 40, a heavier body mass index (BMI) was associated with a more youthful look. In plastic surgery, we've known for awhile that the aging face is not just loosening of the skin, but is driven by a progressive "deflation" of the fatty tissue, recession of the bony prominences of the cheek/midface, and thinning of parts of the skin
with simultaneous thickening of other parts from sun damage. Fat grafting and the use of off the shelf dermal fillers are now routinely used to complement face lifts.

I think this picture from the series is most illustrative of that principle.



Notice the deeper lines by the cheek (nasolabial folds) in the gaunt twin.

The other study is published in this weeks' Plastic Surgery journal and is titles "Identical Twin Face Lifts with differing techniques: A 10 year follow up". It was basically a bet among some of the heavy hitter face lift surgeons about which techniques would hold up best, with the gimmick being it would be performed on identical twin volunteers.

When the procedures were done in 1995, the debate was really about whether newer more invasive techniques being written about like the "deep plane facelift" would hold up better then older,simpler techniques ("SMAS flap" and "SMAS plication" procedures).

What's interesting is that all the twins looked better and the results were fairly well maintained, even 10 years out from surgery. The following editorial was very diplomatic (excellent results can be obtained from different techniques...yada, yada, yada)and not very conclusive, but seemed to talk past the elephant in the room.

Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade:
Looking at a study like this how could you plausibly still assert that the added risk of facial paralysis from the more complex surgery type is justifiable when it's not clear there is any maintained advantage in results. None. Zero. Zilch.

Dr. Dan Baker of Manhattan, face lift god, has been evangelical about this safety issue going back 15 years. He should know. As a young surgeon in the 1970's, he developed a reputation for fixing severed facial nerves from face lifts referred to NYU. Dr. Baker has a wonderful talk about his personal evolution on face lift surgery that I saw as a medical student 13 years ago that was seared in my brain. His simple theorem on risk/reward with complex face lifts has now clearly been validated in print. All the pictures are good results, but I'll be damned if Dr. Baker's patient in this twin series (the one on the far left)doesn't look the best and most natural 10 years out.



Rob