Answered here | Shape
What fights cellulite? Lotions, potions, weight loss, mesotherapy—does anything really work to get rid of dimpled skin?†And more of your questions answered here Shape, June, 2004 by Suzanne Schlosberg
Q Is it possible to eliminate cellulite once you’ve started to get it?
A By losing fat you can reduce the cellulite you have, says David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., an associate clinical professor of public health and medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. However, Katz, who has analyzed research on cellulite, emphasizes that a cellulite-free body is not necessarily a realistic goal for everyone, and weight doesn’t always determine whether or not you have cellulite. “Some people can be overweight and not have cellulite, while others can be thin and have it,” he says.
Cellulite is nothing more than regular old body fat. The reason it has a rippled appearance is that it’s compartmentalized by connective tissue in the deep layers of the skin. The more fat you have between compartments, the more it will bulge and take on a dimpled appearance. So, by losing fat–ideally through a combination of exercise and improved eating habits–you can reduce the dimples.
However, Katz says, the bumpy appearance “is clearly not due just to the volume of fat tissue but also to the integrity of the connective tissue.” In other words, if a woman’s connective tissue is relatively thin or weak, the fat will bulge through more. So, in addition to weight control, anything you do that promotes the resilience of your skin may help prevent or reduce cellulite, according to Katz: “That includes not smoking, avoiding excess sun exposure and taking in a rich variety of antioxidants and other nutrients from vegetables and fruits.” However, it’s not clear how much these measures can actually control cellulite, Katz says, “and there is no scientific evidence that any of the highly promoted lotions and potions work at all.”
This applies, too, to mesotherapy, an anti-cellulite, anti-fat treatment that involves injecting a chemical solution into skin to “melt” fat and dissolve the dimple-causing connective tissue. While it’s possible that mesotherapy has some value, Katz says, “it has not yet been adequately studied and is by no means established as the solution.”
Q I’m an active 25-year-old with normal blood pressure. While keeping a food log for a week, I was shocked to discover that my sodium intake was almost twice the new recommended intake of 1,500 milligrams. At my age, do I need to worry about the salt in my diet?
A Even young, healthy people should limit their salt intake, says cardiologist Franz Messerli, M.D., director of clinical hypertension at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation Hospital in New Orleans. Blood pressure tends to increase with age, and research has convincingly linked high sodium intake with high blood pressure, which is a leading cause of heart disease, stroke and kidney failure. “So it seems prudent to stay within the limits,” Messerli says. What’s more, he adds, research suggests that consuming excess salt may raise heart-disease risk independent of its effect on blood pressure–even more reason to watch your sodium.
Restricting salt not only lowers blood pressure in people with hypertension, it’s also effective with people, young and old, who have normal blood pressure. In the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) sodium study, conducted on 412 men and women of varying ages and blood pressure levels, the less salt the subjects ate, the healthier their blood pressure levels were.
The optimal level of sodium intake is 1,500 milligrams, according to the new guidelines issued by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. (The recommendation used to be no more than 2,400 milligrams daily.) Now, 75 percent of women exceed that amount, and it’s pretty easy to do so. If you eat two slices of sausage pizza, you’ve already consumed 88 percent of the optimal amount of sodium for that day.
To help blunt the effects of sodium and keep blood pressure in check, it’s important to get enough potassium. The Institute of Medicine recommends that adults take in 4,700 milligrams of potassium per day, more than twice as much as the typical American woman gets. The best sources of potassium include spinach, grapefruit, cantaloupe, almonds, bananas, mushrooms, oranges, apricots and potatoes.
Q I know that some people are “emotional eaters,” whereas others eat out of boredom. But I simply enjoy food. I can polish off a rack of ribs and be stuffed, yet I still eat a sundae because it just looks so darned good. I can’t seem to control this problem and have gained weight. How can I drum up the willpower to say no?
A People overeat for many reasons other than boredom or the blues, says Kathleen Zelman, R.D., a nutritionist in Atlanta and the director of nutrition for Webmd.com: “We eat for social reasons and because food tastes good; most of us are enjoyment eaters.”
One important strategy, Zelman says, is to get in touch with your satiety level. “It takes as long as 20 minutes for your brain to register that you’re full,” she explains. “Try to tune in to the cues your body is giving you.” Before you eat dessert, pay attention to how full you are. Simply noting your satiety level may keep you from indulging. If that approach doesn’t work and you still want it just because it tastes so good, at least share it with a friend, Zelman suggests.
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