One of the safest ways to have your teeth whitening is to go via your dentist. However dentist tooth whitening treatments can often be quite costly so some people turn to home whitening kits.

There are a myriad of home tooth whitening kits on the market however some can seriously damage the enamel on the teeth and irritate gums. So which kits are best and which should you avoid?

Chlorine Dioxide
Some tooth whitening kits contain chlorine dioxide – the same chemical you will find in swimming pools. The whitening effect from these kits is caused by the tooth surface being etched. This destroys the tooth enamel causing sensitive teeth and possibly even the loss of the teeth in the long-term. The acid can also burn the gums causing pain and discomfort. Although the short-term gain is good, this treatment will actually leave your teeth even more discoloured. This is because once the enamel is damaged, the teeth are more exposed and this means they are more easily stained by food and drink.

Hydrogen Peroxide
Most home tooth whitening kits contain hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide penetrates the porous enamel and oxidises the stains.

A common side effect is sore gums because the mouth guard is not a good fit to the teeth. If the hydrogen peroxide is too strong a concentration, it can burn the gums. In severe cases this will expose the tooth root, cause irreversible gum recession and tooth sensitivity. If you swallow a large amount of the chemical it can also burn your throat and stomach.

The legal percentage of hydrogen peroxide in UK kits it 0.1 percent. This percentage is fairly weak and means they probably won’t whiten properly. Some kits contain concentrations of around five percent and at these concentrations, the product can damage teeth.

Abrasives
Many toothpastes use abrasive ingredients to help whiten teeth. As long as the abrasive ingredient isn’t too strong this is fine. However if the product is overly abrasive it may remove some of the tooth enamel, permanently damaging your teeth.

Tooth Whitening Clinics/Salons
A wealth of tooth whitening clinics and salons have sprung up in the past few years. In the UK, the General Dental Council has received over 600 complaints about tooth whitening by beauty therapists in these clinics and salons.

The GDC classes tooth whitening as dentistry and therefore says that it is illegal for anyone who is not registered with them to perform teeth whitening procedures. These are currently ongoing High Court proceedings to determine whether tooth whitening done by unregistered therapists is legal or not. It should also be noted that the EU has investigated and believes that levels of carbamide peroxide of 6 percent or less are safe.

The occasional usage of home tooth whitening kits should not be a problem if used as advised. However repeated long-term use of whitening kits may cause irreversible tooth damage.

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Fat grafting is used in a range of cosmetic surgeries – from helping the look of scars, to wrinkle-reductions or lip augmentations. Although fat grafting is not a new technique, the methodology has been steadily improving over the years and this has meant that the treatment has become ever more popular.

In the early days of fat grafting, the fat cells were absorbed into the body t a fast rate meaning that the desired results often faded away quickly. However new techniques mean that fat is injected in smaller proportions into different layers of tissue to ensure that the results of the treatment last longer.

There are three major steps involved in a fat graft. Firstly, the body fat must be harvested. Usually fat is taken from the abdomen and/or thigh region. The fatty cells are then separated from other fluids before being injected into the treatment sites. Around 10 percent of the harvested cells are actually fat which can be used – the rest is fluid which must be discarded. Approximately 20-30 percent of the total fat injected will be reabsorbed therefore more fat than is required will be injected to ensure the eventual results are as desired.

One of the biggest up-sides to using your own body fat as an injectable as opposed to other fillers are that the chance of rejection is much smaller since the cells originated from your own body. The results are also said to have a much longer lasting effect as the fat cells can continue to maintain and grow after getting blood supply from the region.

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Von Furstenberg was on holiday in Aspen last month when another skiier crashed into her hitting her badly on her face and ribs with a camera. She is reported to have suffered a broken nose and some light facial fractures.

Talking to the New York Daily News she commented, “If I ever had any desire to have plastic surgery, I know for sure now, I would not want it.

“I was so terrified that I would lose my old face. I don’t want anybody else’s face. I don’t want a younger face. I just want my old face back.”

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SimplyCosmeticSurgery.com commissioned a poll to discover whether people were proud of their plastic surgery or whether they hid the fact they had been under the knife from their friends. The poll revealed that a whopping 66pc of people didn’t want people to know that they had had work done. Just 22pc of people were proud to tell others that they had had surgery, with the remainder telling some friends but not others.

With cosmetic surgery results getting better and better, and skillful plastic surgeons able to create results which look natural, it is no surprise that many people who have surgery want others to believe that their youthful, fresh-faced looks are entirely natural.

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However new research now shoes that cosmetic surgery to help smooth wrinkles on the forehead may have the unexpected side effect of also curing migraines.

Dr Bahman Guyuron from University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio noticed that patients who had surgery to smooth forehead wrinkles said their headaches were either improved or cured completely. 60 pc found that the headaches improved whilst 29 pc said that they had had no more migraines since surgery.

The technique consists of deactivating trigger sites in the muscles or nerves that produce pain. For most patients at least two trigger sites were targeted. The trigger sites were tested prior to surgery with Botox to confirm that the surgery would be in the correct places.

69 patients were evaluated and after five years, 88 pc of these had a positive long-term response to the surgery. Headaches were significantly decreased in 59 pc and completely eliminated in 29 pc. The remaining patients found no change.

Migraine attacks were less frequent after the surgery with the average migraine frequency decreased from about eleven to four per month. Also, when attacks occurred, they didn’t last as long with the average length of time reducing from 34 to eight hours.

Although this isn’t been heralded as a cure, it is an interesting step forward in migraine research. Although it doesn’t help everybody, it may be worth taking the gamble and paying for surgery for those people where migraines seriously affect their quality of life.

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Research has shown that as many as 60 women out of the 5-10 million who have had breast implants worldwide have developed ALCL. This compares to the normal rate of around 3 women in 100 million.

ALCL develops in the scar tissue that forms around the implant and is treatable. The disease can form regardless of whether the breast implants are silicone or saline. However surgeons have warned that there is no need to panic or for existing patients to have their breast implants removed as the risk is tiny. However if any women finds that the area around her implants is swelling or she experiences pain or lumps, she should seek medical help immediately as these symptoms could be caused by ALCL.

This is not the first time that the safety of breast implants has been called into question. In 1992, the FDA imposed a plan on silicone breast implants, except as part of clinical trials, as it was feared that if the implants leaked it could cause health problems such as autoimmune diseases. However the ban was lifted in 2006 although the US manufacturers have been asked to continue monitoring patients for the next 10 years to monitor safety.

There are also plenty of other more common side effects associated with breast implants. These include pain in the area, changes in nipple and breast sensation, rupture, capsualar contracture (a shrinking of the a lining of scar tissue that forms around the implant which causes pain and breast hardness), and a migration of silicone in silicone implants. Having implants can also make it harder for technicians to read mammograms.

The most common side effect is capsular contracture with around 10 pc of women experiencing this in the first five years after their breast enlargement operation using saline implants, and around 30 pc of women using silicone.

The best advice is that although it appears that the risk of contracting ALCL after breast enhancement surgery is tiny, if you have any pain, concerns or questions, seek medical advice as soon as possible.

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In the UK, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) have released figures showing that plastic surgery is as popular as ever with a 5 pc increase in the number of procedures carried out last year.

Although going under the knife is still skewed towards women, more and more men and also having surgery. Although nose jobs still top the list for mens’ cosmetic surgery, ‘moob’ removal (gynecomestia) saw a massive increase – up 28 pc from 2009 – and has leapt to the second most popular surgery for men.

For UK women the opposite is true with breast enlargements being the most popular cosmetic surgery, up 10 pc from 2009.

This upward trend appears to be the same around the world with cosmetic surgeons in Singapore also reporting an increase in the number of patients, particularly those who are under the age of 21. Last week, the Straits Times reported that in the last five years there has been a 30pc increase in the number of cosmetic operations performed on under-21s in Singapore.

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The 44-year old actress has said that she has no fears about growing older and says age is ‘underrated.’

“I can still move all my face muscles,” Bonham-Carter explained to British newspaper the Daily Mail. “Look! There aren’t many who can still do that!

“Age is underrated. I think what’s happening is that directors and the studios want actresses who have natural looks, who haven’t had work done. The problem is that now the high-definition camera can tell so it’s best to leave your face alone.

“Look at Judi Dench. She’s beautiful. Talk about her face being her fortune! She never stops working. That’s what I want for me.

“You have two choices – you can have the work done and look weirder; or have nothing done and look older. I think the only way I’ll continue to get work is if I don’t get anything done.

“There’s beauty in an older woman – the lines represent something.”

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We all know that facial wrinkles and saggy skin are associated with making us look older. However new research has shown that the bones in the face may change over time and contribute to us looking older.

Dr Robert B. Shaw and his team from the University of Rochester Medical Center analyzed tomography scans of facial bones from a large set of patients. The scans were of people needing medical treatment rather than those looking for cosmetic surgery. The team compared the results between young people (20-40 year olds), middle aged people (41 to 64) and older (65+).

The research showed that there were some important differences in the facial bone structure over time. The most prominent change was at increase in the area of orbital aperture (the eye sockets) with the sockets becoming longer and wider with age. The brow, nose and upper jaw angles also appeared to reduce over time, whilst the length and height of the lower jaw was also seen to decrease.

Although the changes were noted in both men and women it appears that the changes happen sooner in women than men: in men, most of the changes appear to occur between middle and old age whilst in women, most of the changes appear between young and middle age.

The research may help cosmetic surgeons tweak how they work to ensure that they mimic a younger bone structure and therefore help their patients look more youthful after treatment.

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Dr Cotsarelis of the University of Pennsylvania has been investigating the cause of male baldness and believes he has discovered the cause. Using cell samples taken from hair transplant patients, one of the tests Dr Cotsarelis ran was looking at the number of stem cells in bald parts of the scalp compared to other places. Surprisingly he found that bald areas have the same number of stem cells as places with hair.

However it was discovered that in bald areas the stem cells – the immature cells that turn into hair producing cells – were far less likely to have matured. This result implies that there may be a problem in the activation of stem cells converting to progenitor cells in the balding areas. Therefore if a way could be found to reactivate the stem cells and get them to mature, bald areas could be coaxed into producing new hairs.

It is hoped that in the next decade a technique will be found that will allow men to regrow their hair – whether that’s through a lotion or cream, or through removing the stem cells from the affected areas, kick-starting them in a laboratory and then re-implanting them in the scalp.

(Photo Credit: Angel Norris)

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