Food Allergy or Food Intolerance? What's the Difference?

My friend Kevin, the General Manager of ALCAT, just sent this nice summary detailing the difference between the two oft confused entities:

Food allergy is mediated by an immune response that requires prior exposure and occurs immediately after subsequent ingestion of the food. It has a very specific trigger (antigen) and antibody response (serum IgE). The RAST technology measures the amount of antibody the body makes against the offending food.

Food Intolerance, Food Additive and Coloring Sensitivities are very different. When the body doesn't digest foods well, they tend to "leak" into the bloodstream in large macromolecules. This can trigger a Cellular Inflammatory Response by the body. White blood cells (WBCs) produce chemicals that break down foreign matter to eliminate from our body. However, a by-product of the process is inflammation. Over a long period of time, inflammation can create a lot of degenerative
diseases.

Chronic inflammation has been linked to digestive disorders, obesity, migraine headaches, Attention-deficit disorders, rheumatoid arthritis and many others. The ALCAT test measures how your body's WBCs respond to the foods. If the WBCs release the chemicals when exposed to foods, then eliminating the food from your diet can reduce the inflammation in your body and thereby reduce or eliminate the symptoms of chronic inflammation and disease.

We believe that because ALCAT measures the cellular response which encompasses both the antibody (requiring prior exposure) and general inflammatory response (no prior exposure necessary), it is the best methodology for food intolerance and chemical sensitivity testing.

Early Experience with Water-Jet Assisted Liposuction

After an exhausting few days of training with Dr Ueberreiter, we are now seeing the fruits of our efforts. The patients have returned for review today, and the post-operative experience has been very encouraging. The bruising is truly minimal, and swelling variable. The larger the treated area, the more swelling seen. Our gentleman patient did not have any obvious swelling or bruising to be seen, and his abdominal musculature was very nicely visible 24 hours after op!

Pain was also mild to moderate, with pain relief only needed for larger ops. In fact, for tummy work, little sedation was needed to tolerate the procedure. We were about to communicate very well with the patients at all times! This meant turning from side to side, lifting legs, etc, were done very easily such that we can check for fat thickness and contour irregularities at any time.

More importantly, we learnt that patient selection is far more critical than with mesotherapy. fibrosis from any cause can make the operation very tough. And fat trapped under fibrosis is very stubborn indeed!

Anyway, it's back to work for us. Lots of clinical work to catch up with. And stock to replace before our next few cases booked for next weekend!

German Plastic Surgeon Launches Water-Jet Assisted Liposuction at Singapore Clinic Simply Aesthetic

(PRLEAP.COM) SINGAPORE - German Plastic Surgeon Dr Ueberreiter, an expert in Water-Jet Assisted Liposuction (WAL), introduces the new Liposoft technique with the Body Jet machine to the doctors at Singapore clinic Simply Aesthetic. This new form of liposuction has the advantage of low tissue trauma and high operative precision, this improving the safety and results of liposuction surgery.

Dr Ueberreiter will be training Dr Christine Cheng of Simply Aesthetic on the technique. Six operations are booked during this period. Some of the procedures are corrective for irregularities developed after other forms of liposuction.

WAL dislodges fat cells with a powerful jet of water, then simultaneously sucks up the water and released fat cells, thereby minimising the swelling normally associated with liposuction. The water jet is too gentle to cause trauma to the blood vessels and nerves, hence there is little bruising or changes in sensation from the treatment. Recovery is fast with little post-operative pain, swelling and bruising.

WAL is the only liposuction technique that allows precise intra-operative contouring as large volume tumescent infiltration is not required as with other liposuction techniques. Minimal sedation is required, so the patients are able to re-position themselves during the operation, thereby allowing any contour irregularities to be detected and corrected.

The technique also allows large volumes of fat to be removed. In Germany, up to two litres of fat can be safely extracted from up to six operative regions.

WAL will be the definitive treatment for body contouring at Simply Aesthetic. This procedure is complemented by non-invasive treatments for skin firming and cellulite reduction.

Dr Ueberreiter will be in Singapore from 22nd to 25th November 2007.

Source: PR Leap (Nov 22, 2007)

RSS Feeds for Updates

RSS (Really Simply Syndication) Feeds have just been added to the Simply Aesthetic Blog. It's my first attempt at playing with this technology, so please do contact me if I've not done it quite right! I've checked the feed to My Yahoo! and it seems to work nicely. Yay!

Why this foray into deeper tech-land?

Well, I figured I'm not the most disciplined Blogger in the world. With "littering" all over the WWW, contributions to this blog are sporadic & mood dependent. The addition of RSS Feeding allows our readers to keep in touch with our entries when available. No need to waste time checking if I happen to ignore the blog for weeks or months. But if there's news, subscribers will always be the first to know.

Pretty cool, right?

Bangkok Training (November 2007)

Workshop on Radiofrequency Application

In Aesthetic Medicine
9th & 10th November 2007

Waiting To Start Training


Lifting Demonstration by Prof Niwat

Ivy concentrating hard on Prof Niwat's demo


Surgical Applications with Dr Chanchai

Presentation of Certificate of Competency

Prof Niwat with Jay in the background

New Face Scrub Treatment

I promised myself I'd not buy anymore machines. But I could not resist this one. My last peel was all the way back in February. My skin has been crying out for some quick fix. It's had a little attention recently with the RF lift & rejuvenation, but still lacked the post-peel glow that I love.

When I was poking about at an exhibition recently, I spied a cute little machine that looked interesting. Within 5 minutes, I was flat on my back in public again (at least my butt and cellulite was not bared for all to see & feel this time!). After a quick facial cleanse, this device was unleashed on me. The ultrasonic scrubber quickly and gently lifted off the dead cells that caused my loss of radiance. Then vitamin C was infused in for a more whitening. My skin was instantly revitalised and looked cleaner & clearer.

Yep, the little cutie is now sitting in Simply Aesthetic. And I'm hoping to get my skin scrubbed once a week.

Back to Work!

After a week away, we are just settling back into work again. The time away has been incredibly fruitful as we have learnt from experts in the field. Some of the treatments can only be described as miraculous! The most mind blowing is my encounter with a 62-year old lady (most senior Anaesthetist in the hospital, no less!) with skin better than many 20 year olds! Well, her cheeks anyway, as that was the area treated last year. In a few months time, she will have a forehead and neck to match. Want to know what this miracle treatment is? Watch this space! We will be bringing this into Simply Aesthetic soon. Discussions have begun with the local distributor. In the meantime, photos of the contrast between treated & untreated areas will be posted in the next few days.

During the Bangkok sector, we spent 2 days watching the leading experts re-shape faces with the DermaRF radiofrequency machine, blitz off unwanted skin lesions & pigmentations, as well as trim down a lady's tummy so much her trousers were loose!

Of course, we shopped and ate too!

Manila was the best! Julie was my travel companion for this sector. It was lovely to meet up with my old friends, especially Cathy (who sponsored my lecture tour last year), Dr Claudine Roura (Derm Surgeon) and Dr Lam from Hong Kong. Claudine & Lam were both at the workshop too, which made it a lot more fun! Both had some operative experience, so I could hear their perspective on what we were seeing that day.

Things I will be keen to implement from that workshop include (guess what the 62-year old had!!!):

• Gold Thread implantation
• Stitch Blepharoplasty (No-Cut Double Eyelid Surgery)
• Transconjunctival Lower Blepharoplasty (No Scar Eye Bag Surgery)
• Fat Transfer (Cheek Augmentation)
• Brow Lift

The surgeons were working non-stop till 7pm when they pretty much gave up from exhaustion. There were many more cases yet to do, including rhinoplasties. Such a shame!

They've invited me to return next year. They're after my nose. Yep! It's a BIG job apparently, the whole works! I don't know. Nice to have a free nose job by one of the top plastic surgeons in Japan, but I kinda like my nose as it is... And I have no pain threshold whatsoever!

Congratulations to the Lucky 10!

When we ordered our Body Jet WAL a month ago, we were confident that its numerous advantages would make it a popular choice for fat reduction. We decided to offer the first 10 people who agreed to have this treatment with us the opportunity to undergo this treatment at a very low introductory price. Without any form of marketing other than placing some information on our website, our phones have been ringing off the hook!

For those who have come for consultation and gone away to think about it, we're terribly sorry, but we can no longer offer the treatment at the price we quoted. All ten slots have been taken.

Six will have the operation when Dr Ueberreiter is in Singapore on 23rd & 24th November. The rest from 30th November onwards. The break is so I can recover from my own WAL experience on the 25th! I'm going by the reported experience of over 90% of people undergoing being completely pain free by the 4th post-operative day.

For anyone who's interested in undergoing WAL, we are still offering a good discount for the next 10 confiirmed bookings. The cost has increased by 10%, so it's still a really good deal. We're still being very liberal about the definition of an area, but I know that this will change after Dr Ueberreiter's visit.

ALCAT Updates

It has been little over a week since we started running the ALCAT Food Intolerance Test again. We have now sent off 4 tests, and 3 sets of results have come back. The turnaround time seems to be in the region of a week to ten days.

Our initial concerns were regarding the limited collection times (Monday to Thursday mornings before 10.30 am) so as to get the blood processed within the vital 30 hour window. Mediquest has been excellent at providing local support during the times when we could only collect the blood at noon. They have come specially to collect the samples for delivery straight to the airport!

One other perk of the new system is we can get a soft copy of the results before the hard copy is couriered over from Australia!

What I do miss is direct communication with the test lab to find out why there are delays. All I get from Mediquest is "The result is not ready yet"... Not very helpful to someone who's been waiting a week to find out if their favourite food is causing their health probems.

Hopefully, these issues will be resolved once ALCAT testing is done in Singapore again. In the meantime, the the testing in Australia is proving to be a very decent alternative.