Cures for reducing cellulite?-What is cellulite

WHAT IS CELLULITE?
Cellulite is certainly not a serious condition from the medical point of view, but it does
represent the most widespread and least tolerated aesthetic complaint among women.
The condition is very well known through intense publicity campaigns in the mass media
and the cosmetics industry targeted at increasing the market for cosmetic creams, electromedical
equipment, pills, and therapeutic fantasies that often lack a scientific basis though
they sometimes improve the aesthetic aspect of the problem. Most aesthetic treatments
might be compared to a ‘‘coat of white paint’’ painted over a damp patch on the wall.
By adding subsequent layers of paint, the wall may improve its appearance, but our medical
duty is to eliminate the dampness itself so that the wall may ‘‘recover’’ its good state
rather than merely ‘‘seem’’ sound.
However, the importance of the purely aesthetic problem should not be underrated.
‘‘Appearance,’’ the most popular theme of cosmetics, may seem superficial and frivolous
but it ends up being an essential element during consultation. Both in medicine and
surgery, especially in cosmetic surgery, nothing should be considered frivolous.
Cellulite is an actual pathology, something uncomfortable and unaesthetic, which
results in a disease for the patient. Our duty as physicians is to suggest the best scientific
methods that are appropriate (or available) to repair tissue damage and pathological
disorders, and are effective in improving aesthetics.
& DEFINITION
Nobody denies that the term ‘‘cellulitis’’ has been misused, because in medicine the suffix
‘‘itis’’ refers to inflammation, phlogosis, or infection. Therefore, ‘‘cellulitis’’ might refer to
an inflammation of the cells involved. Cells, the basic vital units, integrate (with additional
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interstitial structures) the microvascular–tissular unit of all living tissues. In so-called
cellulite, there is no phlogosis of the cells, but perhaps an alteration of interstitial tissues.
Why has such an empirical misuse been applied for so long in medicine and everyday
life? There was a time when cellulite was conceived as a mere increase of fat in subcutaneous
tissues associated with an altered lymphatic and venous flow and lymphatic stasis.
Furthermore, there was a deeply rooted notion that cellulite was closely related with the
specific stasis subsequent to hypotonia or venous and lymphatic disease and, therefore,
it was assumed that a previous varicose disease should exist for cellulite to appear. In fact,
this is true in some infrequent cases. Most often the interstitial alterations of cellulite disease
appear first and the varicose or lymphatic pathology manifests itself only later. In any
case, the characteristic peau d’orange appearance of cellulite is either caused by an increase
in the fat or interstitial liquid content, or to the alteration and retraction of connective
tissue layers occurring at different times and in different manners.
Venous–lymphatic stasis is the outward expression of malfunctioning in the endocrinemetabolic
regulation of the interstitium. From our point of view, however, this definition
does not include all the stages of the disease as far as their evolution in time is concerned
and, worse, it does not consider all its etiological and physiopathological variants.
There are clearly three stages of development: edema, fibrosis, and sclerosis, but
the initial edema is not always the first pathological manifestation since an alteration
of the interstitial matrix, the connective structure, or the adipose tissue often precedes
its appearance.
In some particular cases, such as lipedema and lipolymphedema, the edema—
characterized by the presence of free water instead of lymph—results from an alteration
of the interstitial or adipocytic metabolic mechanisms.
42 & BACCI AND LEIBASCHOFF
In Dercum’s syndrome, for example, an alteration of interstitial structures due to
phlogosis of the nervous axon was suggested, associated with bacteria from the intestine.
German authors [especially Letzel (1)] have found such bacteria in ‘‘cellulite’’ tissues or, at
least, the presence of lesions caused by these bacteria. The question is, then, where do these
bacteria come from?
It is well known that all nutrients needed for life are distributed from the intestine to
the whole organism through blood and lymph. They are accompanied, however, by toxic
substances, heavy metals, bacteria, etc. Thus, defense reactions are activated in the form of
lymphocytes, macrophages, or immune reactions to protect tissue health. Therefore, the
etiology of different cellulite disease cases may be associated to the after effects or sequelae
of toxic, metabolic, and—why not—bacterial attacks.