Recycle Your Fat: Your Liposuction By-products are More Valuable than You Think

Researchers at Stanford University recently discovered that fat cells removed during liposuction can be used to create stem cells.

Fat cells in the body have been found to yield induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. These stem cells can, through medical technology, grow into any of the 200+ types of cells found in the human body. The stem cells from fat can be created more easily than those found in skin cells, which is what researchers in the US and Japan have been using since 2007.

These fat cells are typically destroyed or disposed of following a liposuction procedure. Traditional lipo maintains the integrity of the fat cells it removes, however there are now many popular lipolysis procedures that make it easier to remove the fat before suctioning it out. Some of these procedures preserve the fat cells while others do not.

Laser lipolysis procedures such as SmartLipo and SlimLipo heat and destroy the fat cells before removing them. These cells are too damaged to be reused in any way. The Vaser procedure on the other hand only breaks up the cells using ultrasonic waves. The cell structure is still intact and can be reused for fat transfer procedures. In fact, a recent publication called Vaser the new standard for use in fat transfer procedures. The Body-Jet procedure also preserves the fat as it uses water to break it up and separate it from the surrounding tissues.

Which method of liposuction yields fat that is best suited for creating stem cells is a decision for the medical professionals, and it will likely be years before the one person's stem cell can be used in someone else. The Stanford researchers who made the discovery say that it requires much less fat than is typically removed in liposuction, about half the volume of a standard soda can. The study is set to be published on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, September 8.

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