By Metro Reporter
18 June 2004
Liposuction may improve the waistline - but it won't leave you healthier, a study shows. In tests, obese women who had up to 23lb of belly fat removed in the procedure did not appear to lower their risk of diabetes or heart disease - both of which are fat-related.
The findings are a blow to established thinking that surgically removing fat helps restore a healthier body chemistry. 'It's not how much fat you remove but how you remove it,' Dr Samuel Klein, of Washington University in Missouri, told the New England Journal of Medicine. 'We have to go back to a traditional recommendation of "be more physically active".'