Pushing the needle for lasting beauty

Cosmetic acupuncture offers hope for those wanting to look young forever.

There are many cliches about beauty. Who hasn't heard of the popular saying that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. That old adage has, in modern times, been re-written as beauty lies in the hands of the skilled cosmetic surgeon, such is the mania and willingness to go under the knife.

Though the pain and perils of cosmetic surgery are well-known but the quest for lasting youth and beauty has meant that more people than ever before are willing to undergo surgery. But what if all that is sought after was possible after just a few painless pin-pricks?

Acupuncture, popularly thought to have originated in China (though there is said to be some evidence that acupuncture may have been in use in Eurasia), offers the possibility of taking years off one's face and other parts of the body.

Lacotse Catherine, a 49-year-old French lady living in India, decided to try acupuncture for her sagging facial skin and crow's feet and is happy with the results.

She says, with a broad smile on her face, "I took about 10-12 sessions for this problem but I also had other health problems when I first started getting acupuncture done. After the sessions, even my husband commented on the change in my face." And husbands do not lie, especially when it comes to being brutally honest about their wives' appearance.

Dr Raman Kapur "" who first trained as an MBBS doctor and then went on to study acupuncture "" is treating Catherine for cosmetic acupuncture. He explains how it works.

He says, "When it comes to wrinkles, in acupuncture we can only do a seven millimeter pull of the skin around the wrinkle. If a wrinkle requires more than that to be straightened, then the wrinkle cannot be removed."

That is why those who practice acupuncture do not call the cosmetic procedure they do a facelift, the term otherwise popularly used by cosmetic surgeons.

But even if the procedure isn't called by that term, acupuncture can and does offer remedies for many cosmetic problems like sagging facial skin, double chin, sagging breasts, breast augmentation, bags under the eyes, upper and lower medial eye areas, reducing male breasts, forehead wrinkles, cheeks, upper and lower epigastria area (middle of the stomach), obesity, sagging upper arm, acupuncture's version of a tummy tuck (for this the good doctor uses special four-inch long needles to tighten the stomach muscles), obesity and cellulite, that problem area that both the beauty and medical industries have failed to tackle effectively. Kapur, who has an almost evangelical zeal about acupuncture says that the acupuncture needles stimulates collagen (protein) synthesis, which is how the wrinkles get smoothened out. The needles also increase blood supply to facial tissues and that's how the skin starts looking radiant and blemish free.

But for the effect to be permanent Kapur, who runs a clinic with his wife Sunita (also an MBBS), says the organ or organs responsible for the damage also needs to be treated. Says Kapur, "If your internal organs work well, then your face will show it." Sunita points out that, for instance, if the spleen channel (not to be confused with the organ) is deficient then the body will be prone to loose skin, cellulite and varicose veins.

And that is why with ageing, when the energy flow of the channels reduces, wrinkles start appearing and the skin starts sagging. Kapur points out another interesting nugget of information: he says that if as a person one is fearful, which indicates that the kidney channel is underperforming, one will get wrinkles around the nose area. Catherine puts it succinctly when she says, "Basically your disease is visible on your face in acupuncture."

Since we live in an imperfect world, there have to be caveats to what seems to be the discovery of a cosmetic heaven. Kapur says that if the skin is long gone due to the body's natural degenerative process (which all of you out there, be warned, starts at age 50-55 years. All those under that age rush now, think later) then acupuncture offers little hope. And if the sagging part of the body needs more than a seven millimeter pull, then too acupuncture offers little hope.

As an interesting aside, Kapur tells me that he gets his maximum patients for cosmetic acupuncture from Pakistan. The governments of both the countries seems to have missed out on this as an important tool for its ongoing Track II diplomacy measures. After all which heartless country will refuse painless, forever beauty for its citizens?