SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Do you want to loose those love handles? Do you want to remove that muffin top? Well, doctors and patients say you can do all of that by simply freezing your fat.
Many are calling it a dieter's dream - a way to get that fat that doesn't seem to disappear no matter how little you eat or how much you exercise. We caught up with Dr. Robert Orme at Lone Peak Dermatology to check out the fat freezing technology.
"Love handles, bra fat, back fat and the baby carriage in the front." Those are some of the areas that Dr. Orme says the coolsculpting device will tackle. "It literally sculpts unwanted pockets of fat." We watched it in action on patient Susan Fox. Its a device that uses suction and cooling plates to grab your fatty areas and then freeze them right through your skin. Dr. Orme says, "Fat freezes at a slightly higher temperature than water." And he adds, that triggers the "natural death of fat cells."
Susan says its not a painful experience. "I'm not in pain. I feel pressure, but nothing that would make me want to rip it off and run out the door." Susan says she came to Dr. Orme because she is tired of the fat in her stomach area. "I cant deal with this - its driving me crazy."
This technology was approved by the FDA in 2010. Today it is the talk of the medical community - and the hope of thousands of patients - patients like Dana Kane. "I call it a kangaroo pouch, and no matter what it always hangs over." She also went to her doctor because of her stomach. She wants it to look tighter, but wants nothing to do with going under the knife. "It's major surgery - I dread the anesthesia and recovery time." With the fat freezing technology there are no needles, no knifes, no drugs and Dana says just a little discomfort. "Its really not painful at all."
That's not to say it looks good when the machine lets go of all that fat. You can see Dana's stomach fat is frozen and hard. The doctor works it out within a few minutes. And within a few months the fat cells will shrivel up and will be absorbed by her body. Dr. Orme says, "Each time you do a cycle it decreases the fitness of the fat 20-25 percent."
Not everyone is a good candidate. Doctors tell us the best patients are those who are only about 10 to 15 pounds overweight. And as you can see in these photos - they usually have remarkable results. But it isn't always one and done - and it is expensive. One area will cost you between 500 to more than one thousand dollars.
