Speaker 1: I guess what, well, what's that mango? So, have you
Speaker 1: ever heard of Poker Talks? Poker talks? Is that? Is
Speaker 1: that like detox for playing poker or what? I actually
Speaker 1: have not heard of it. It's actually botox for playing poker. Oh,
Speaker 1: I get it. That's smart. Yeah. It was invented by
Speaker 1: this New York City doctor. His name's Jack Birdie, and
Speaker 1: he's also this poker player, and he realized the biggest
Speaker 1: problem for poker players is their tells, like people who
Speaker 1: like far with their brows or curl their lips as
Speaker 1: they're trying to bluff, and so he basically came up
Speaker 1: with a few places to administer botox so you don't
Speaker 1: show your hand as much. Now, I'm guessing this is
Speaker 1: just for humans or can you know those dogs that
Speaker 1: play poker? Can they also get this treatment? I love
Speaker 1: the idea of like a sharpay or one of those
Speaker 1: like super wrinkly dogs just getting all smoothed out, because
Speaker 1: the boats I feel like it will take so many
Speaker 1: years off the dog. But hearing about Poker Talks treatments
Speaker 1: really made us wonder, like, what the history of these
Speaker 1: cosmetic procedures. How long have people have been getting those
Speaker 1: jobs and why was the Civil War such a turning
Speaker 1: point for plastic surgery. So let's dive in their podcast. Listeners,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer and
Speaker 1: on the other side of the soundproof glass. Really feeling
Speaker 1: that burn because he's doing his daily set of Facer sizes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've noticed this man, he's been
Speaker 1: doing them all week. I didn't. Well, that is our
Speaker 1: friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now. Tristan claims these exercises
Speaker 1: are a viable alternative to plastic surgery, something about how
Speaker 1: like toning your face muscles can make you look younger.
Speaker 1: So good luck to you, Tristan. You already pretty young looking.
Speaker 1: But you know, we'll see if this makes a difference.
Speaker 1: And honestly, from here, it mostly looks like he's just
Speaker 1: kind of smushing his cheeks and making this little turtle face.
Speaker 1: It's kind of I wish everybody could see this. It's
Speaker 1: a little weird. Yeah, So he was trying to explain
Speaker 1: this to me earlier. He's been doing this old nineties
Speaker 1: exercise routine that's supposed to tighten facial muscles, and he
Speaker 1: said it's called cheek energizing, and supposedly as part of
Speaker 1: this whole face of size program that this doctor named
Speaker 1: Carol Maggio developed like thirty years ago. It all sounds
Speaker 1: and looks pretty bizarre, and I'm mostly just impressed that
Speaker 1: Tristan was able to decode the written instructions. So I
Speaker 1: actually looked this up and this is a breakdown to
Speaker 1: the cheek energizer move he's been doing. Quote, place an
Speaker 1: index finger lightly on the top of each cheek. Now,
Speaker 1: smile with the middle of your upper lip while thinking
Speaker 1: about the expression you pulling the top lip flat against
Speaker 1: your teeth. Keep your upper and lower lips firmly pulling
Speaker 1: away from each other, and feel your cheeks move under
Speaker 1: your index fingers. Repeat this, smile and release. I mean,
Speaker 1: none of this makes any sense to me. Trying it feels,
Speaker 1: it feels weird. I don't know the middle of your lip, Okay.
Speaker 1: What's strange is that if we wanted, we can actually,
Speaker 1: like ask the inventor herself about how to do this.
Speaker 1: At age seventy three, she actually promotes facer size on Skype,
Speaker 1: and you can do a skype session with her and
Speaker 1: she'll walk you through it face to face. I am
Speaker 1: totally going to do this manga that she sounds weird
Speaker 1: enough for me to want to do it, and it
Speaker 1: does seem like could be a pretty surreal experience. But
Speaker 1: as proponents of plastic surgery will tell you, most improvements
Speaker 1: from facial exercise just don't hold a candle to the
Speaker 1: results you get from a shot of botox or maybe
Speaker 1: a half hour under the knife. And when you think
Speaker 1: about it, that relative ease and the immediacy of the results,
Speaker 1: it's what makes cosmetic procedures so appealing in the first place.
Speaker 1: For instance, in two thousand seventeen alone, fifteen point seven
Speaker 1: million minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed in the US,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about things like botox injections, chemical peels,
Speaker 1: laser hair removals. That's almost two increase since the year
Speaker 1: two thousand. Obviously, big reason for that growth is that
Speaker 1: cosmetic procedures have become easier, less invasive, you know, than
Speaker 1: they were in the years past. But millions of people
Speaker 1: are lining up each year to have parts of their
Speaker 1: bodies nipped and tucked and shaped and plumped, but you know,
Speaker 1: whether or not that's a good thing is still kind
Speaker 1: of up in the air for many people. And so
Speaker 1: with that question of mind, we've got to be interesting
Speaker 1: to look into the history of plastic surgery, including how
Speaker 1: and why it got started and many of the ways
Speaker 1: it's changed over the years. And then a little bit
Speaker 1: later in the episode, I think we'll check out some
Speaker 1: of the more recent trends in the industry, as well
Speaker 1: as how a selfie stick might make you think twice
Speaker 1: about getting a nose job. That's right, But you know,
Speaker 1: before we get into any of that, I thought we
Speaker 1: could start by breaking down some of the terms will
Speaker 1: be using today, you know, just so things don't get
Speaker 1: confusing a little bit later. So in general, we refer
Speaker 1: to the term plastic surgery for a few for things
Speaker 1: at once. You know, they're cosmetic surgeries, which are the
Speaker 1: ones meant to enhance a person's overall appearance and aren't
Speaker 1: considered medically necessary, so things like liposuction or or facelifts,
Speaker 1: as well as the less invasive procedures you mentioned, like
Speaker 1: chemical peels and botox. But plastic surgery can also refer
Speaker 1: to reconstructive surgeries and those are the ones performed to
Speaker 1: restore the normal function or appearance of a person's body,
Speaker 1: and for the most part, these are considered medically necessary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are several of these types. When you
Speaker 1: think about surgeries like you know, repairing a cleft palate,
Speaker 1: or the unbelievable jobs that the surgeons can do when
Speaker 1: they're reconstructing a burn victim's face or their body, it's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable how far this has come. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: did think it was worth mentioning because there's still a
Speaker 1: ton of stigma surrounding the term, Like lots of people
Speaker 1: only associate plastic surgery with the cosmetic side of things
Speaker 1: like tummy toks and calf implants. Yeah. Well, and my
Speaker 1: guess is that the stigma has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with the word plastic itself. I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: makes people think about fakeness, artificiality, and all the other
Speaker 1: things we associate with plastic as a substance. Like we
Speaker 1: wrap our view of plastic as being cheap and disposable
Speaker 1: onto these surgeries that share this name, which of course
Speaker 1: is pretty unfair when you really think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially when you consider that the name doesn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with plastic in the first place.
Speaker 1: Like I read this week that the first time the
Speaker 1: word plastic was actually used to describe a surgical technique
Speaker 1: was an eighteen thirty seven, which is so long before
Speaker 1: plastic the substance was even invented, all right, So then
Speaker 1: what did the term actually mean when it was used
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty seven. It actually came from the Greek
Speaker 1: word plastic coast, which means to mold or give form.
Speaker 1: So a plastic surgery was basically a shaping surgery, and
Speaker 1: that was pretty fitting because the earliest forms of plastic
Speaker 1: surgery were based much more in reconstruction than they were
Speaker 1: purely cosmetic changes. You know, it's interesting. This is another
Speaker 1: one of those things that when we started looking into
Speaker 1: the history, you really don't think about how far back
Speaker 1: some of these things go. And so actually the earliest
Speaker 1: known example of plastic surgery dates all the way back
Speaker 1: to the sixth century BC, and it was indeed a
Speaker 1: form of reconstruction. This was a nose job. The technique
Speaker 1: was invented in ancient India by a physician and a
Speaker 1: surgeon named sush Ruta. And this was at the time
Speaker 1: when you know it was common to punish an adulterer
Speaker 1: or a thief with some form of body mutilation, usually
Speaker 1: by cutting off the nose or maybe an ear. And
Speaker 1: so this physician was one of many in the region
Speaker 1: who felt that this was kind of public shaming and
Speaker 1: it was just way over the line, of course, and
Speaker 1: you know, basically ensured that the criminals would be shunned
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. So we wanted to
Speaker 1: do something to help solve this problem, and so we
Speaker 1: began looking for a way to help these people reintegrate
Speaker 1: into society by restoring their appearance as much as he
Speaker 1: possibly could. And so what he came up with was
Speaker 1: this technique where a flap of skin was removed from
Speaker 1: a patient's cheek and then molded and shaped into a
Speaker 1: new nose. And so he warm the nostrils by inserting
Speaker 1: these two hollow reads and then you leave them in
Speaker 1: place to make sure the nostrils didn't close up as
Speaker 1: the new nose healed. I mean, it's unbelievable that somebody
Speaker 1: could pull this off that long ago. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: almost sounds like fantastical to anything like that could even work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems to have been the consensus at the time too.
Speaker 1: But you know, once word of this method spread, other
Speaker 1: Indian surgeons began trying it for themselves, and some even
Speaker 1: put their own spin on the procedure by building the
Speaker 1: replacement nose from a flap of the patient's forehead skin
Speaker 1: rather than you know, maybe their cheek. And this early
Speaker 1: form of rhinoplasty proved so successful that it was eventually
Speaker 1: adapted throughout Europe, where it became known as the Indian method.
Speaker 1: So I had actually heard about this Indian method just
Speaker 1: because it's one of those things I feel is compulsory
Speaker 1: if you're Indian, like for Indian pride, Like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: India also came up with the concept of zero as
Speaker 1: a number and invented shampoo. Like these are just things
Speaker 1: and you're welcome. But uh, apparently we weren't the only
Speaker 1: innovators there. There's also something called the Italian method, and
Speaker 1: this was invented by a surgeon named Antonio Bronca. This
Speaker 1: was in early four hundreds and the big difference was
Speaker 1: that Branco used a flap of skin from the upper
Speaker 1: arm to build his patient's new noses, and this was
Speaker 1: considered an improvement for the most part because it left
Speaker 1: a lot less scarring than Indian method did. The only
Speaker 1: downside was that, and this is a little strange to
Speaker 1: think about, in order for the skin to fully attach itself,
Speaker 1: patients actually to hold their arms against their nose for
Speaker 1: like twenty straight days. Obviously seems super uncomfortable. It does
Speaker 1: sound miserable, but I guess in these cases, you know,
Speaker 1: considering the results for the payoff, I guess it was
Speaker 1: considered worth it. But let's get back to Sushruta for
Speaker 1: a minute. Because after his breakthrough, this plastic surgery continued
Speaker 1: to develop throughout Europe. So, for example, ancient Rome got
Speaker 1: in on the act sometime during the early first century,
Speaker 1: so surgeons of the Arab pioneered bluffero plastic, which is
Speaker 1: the adjustment of the eyelids in order to correct drooping
Speaker 1: or squinting eyes. And around the same time, the Greek
Speaker 1: physician Galen performed the very first purely cosmetic plastic surgery.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a nose job for the wealthy.
Speaker 1: It's kind of cool that nose jobs were like first,
Speaker 1: both for reconstructive and cosmetic purposes. Is it's kind of stunning,
Speaker 1: But you know, not everyone was happy about those breakthroughs
Speaker 1: embody modification. As Christianity began to take hold in Europe
Speaker 1: during the Middle Ages, plenty of religious leaders viewed plastic
Speaker 1: surgery as sinful or almost borderlined blasphemous, and this belief
Speaker 1: gained more traction in the twelfth century when the Pope
Speaker 1: I think it's Pope Innocent, the third at the time,
Speaker 1: he formally spoke out against it, and pretty soon after
Speaker 1: it became a crime to surgically alter the human body.
Speaker 1: So you see, this kind of thing happened throughout history,
Speaker 1: but in this case, like what changed that perception? What
Speaker 1: what made the church eventually backed down from this. This
Speaker 1: is gonna sound strange, but a lot of the shift
Speaker 1: was due to syphilis. Really, you know that there were
Speaker 1: a lot of things I was guessing about. Is not
Speaker 1: what I expected you to say, though, I know. So
Speaker 1: there was a really bad outbreak of this disease in
Speaker 1: Europe during the late sixteenth century, and one of the
Speaker 1: symptoms of advance syphilis happens to be soft tissue, to
Speaker 1: which is usually centered in the nose. I had no
Speaker 1: idea about this, but now there were all these like
Speaker 1: upper crusts, lords and ladies with these big gaping holes
Speaker 1: in their faces, and suddenly this like quote sin of
Speaker 1: like crafting a false nose, it started to seem a
Speaker 1: whole lot better, you know than the alternative of having,
Speaker 1: you know, a hole in your face. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that makes sense. And of course plastic surgeries development didn't
Speaker 1: end in Europe, and the techniques eventually made their way
Speaker 1: here to the United States, with one of the earliest
Speaker 1: practitioners being Dr John Medhour. You know, he and his
Speaker 1: sons ran this successful practice in Virginia, and they were
Speaker 1: specializing in repairing genital birth effects and then later on
Speaker 1: in reconstructive surgery, and his legacy is actually really impressive.
Speaker 1: So met Hour is credited with performing the first hard
Speaker 1: cleft palate repair on the America's in eighteen seven, and notably,
Speaker 1: he completed the procedure by transplanting pieces of bone rather
Speaker 1: than just skin or muscle as previous surgeons had done.
Speaker 1: And so this new technique was this huge leap forward
Speaker 1: for reconstructive surgery, and it's actually the main reason why
Speaker 1: Dr Metour is often called America's first plastic surgeon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it really seems like the nineteenth century is when
Speaker 1: modern plastic surgery really started to take off, and I
Speaker 1: was reading about how much of a game changer the
Speaker 1: Civil War was for battlefield medicine. I mean, you think
Speaker 1: about things like amputation techniques or more reliable forms of anesthesia,
Speaker 1: but facial reconstruction was another area that saw these major
Speaker 1: advances during America's bloodiest war, and records actually show that
Speaker 1: Union surgeons perform more than thirty successful plastic surgeries on
Speaker 1: these disfigured soldiers during the war, and they also pioneered
Speaker 1: new techniques that would later become standards in the field,
Speaker 1: like taking photo us to track the progress of repairs
Speaker 1: and and also using smaller sutures for incisions to help
Speaker 1: minimize the scarring. Yeah, you know, it's interesting how these
Speaker 1: advancements happened during war, because it actually wasn't just the
Speaker 1: Civil War where these kinds of breakthroughs happening, like both
Speaker 1: world wars actually also brought major innovations the plastic surgery
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, I mean that that's definitely a good point,
Speaker 1: and we should spotlight a few of those advances before
Speaker 1: we talk about the state of plastic surgery today. But
Speaker 1: before we go any further, why don't we take a
Speaker 1: quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're
Speaker 1: talking about the long, surprising history of plastic surgery. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so we're up to the twentieth century now in our timeline,
Speaker 1: and we were just about to get into World War One. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. You know, as we were saying, earlier wars
Speaker 1: have certainly led to these turning points, and you know,
Speaker 1: reconstruction of various kinds and facial reconstruction specifically. And there
Speaker 1: were a couple of reasons for this. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you think about what was advanced in terms of warfare
Speaker 1: at that time, you had machine guns and aerial bombers
Speaker 1: that were being used in combat and and really for
Speaker 1: the first time during World War One. And the result
Speaker 1: of this, obvious, you know, tragic result of this is
Speaker 1: that more soldiers suffered facial wounds due to bullets and
Speaker 1: shrapnel than in any of the wars before them. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's obviously awful, but the wounds were often
Speaker 1: more extensive than surgeons were used to treating. So the
Speaker 1: good news here is though, that anesthesia and the treatment
Speaker 1: of infections had definitely improved drastically by this time, So
Speaker 1: you had serious injuries that would have been fatal in
Speaker 1: the past that we're now considered survivable, and that included
Speaker 1: a lot of major facial disfigurements as a result of this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier that there were some like thirty odd
Speaker 1: plastic surgeries during the Civil War, and that actually doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like that many at first, but when you consider
Speaker 1: how many soldiers died just because there was no way
Speaker 1: to stave off infection, it starts to make sense why
Speaker 1: the number was so low. Yeah, And so with World
Speaker 1: War One, surgeons suddenly found themselves with a lot of
Speaker 1: chances to develop and refine new ways to deal with disfigurements.
Speaker 1: And one member of the medical community was especially helpful
Speaker 1: in this regard. His name was doctor Harold Gillies, and
Speaker 1: he was actually a nose, ear and throat specialists. He
Speaker 1: was from New Zealand and so he had joined the
Speaker 1: Royal Army Medical Corps at the start of the war,
Speaker 1: and so during his time on the Western Front, Gilly's
Speaker 1: learned as much as he could about reconstructive surgery, and
Speaker 1: this was mostly by observing the dentist and the doctors
Speaker 1: that he was stationed with. So then when he returns
Speaker 1: to England, he was actually given the chance to apply
Speaker 1: what he learned to the newly opened Queens Hospital in London.
Speaker 1: There were more than a thousand beds there and these
Speaker 1: were reserved for patients in need of these facial reconstruction,
Speaker 1: so it was a ton of people. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's almost hard to imagine that many people needing surgeries
Speaker 1: like that all at once. It's really it's really staggering
Speaker 1: when you think about it. Yeah, no, it really is. Actually,
Speaker 1: there was such a demand for these services that patients
Speaker 1: often had to queue up outside the hospital. So even
Speaker 1: with a thousand beds there, it just gives you a
Speaker 1: sense of how many people were affected by this. And
Speaker 1: there was this set of blue benches reserved exclusively for
Speaker 1: patients with facial disfigurements, and apparently the bright blue color
Speaker 1: was a way to warn the locals that they might
Speaker 1: want to look away when walking past the benches, and
Speaker 1: so it's just tragic to think about that, and you know,
Speaker 1: it might seem insensitive at first, but it was really
Speaker 1: as much for the patients as it was for the public.
Speaker 1: And you know, if anything, the soldiers probably appreciated the
Speaker 1: break from people staring at them all the time. I guess.
Speaker 1: So what kind of breakthroughs was Gilly's making at that time. Well,
Speaker 1: there's actually probably too many to go through here, but
Speaker 1: one of the biggest was what he called the two
Speaker 1: pedicle or flat procedure, I guess. So basically, Gillies would
Speaker 1: cut a strip of living skin and tissue and then
Speaker 1: he would form it to this tube that was still
Speaker 1: connected to the patient at one end. Then the tube
Speaker 1: could be laid across the patient's wounded face until the
Speaker 1: skin graft actually took root. Which sounds pretty gruesome, but
Speaker 1: I'm guessing there was some sort of upside to this approach. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I mean a really big one. So before Gillies came along,
Speaker 1: reconstructive surgeries had long struggled on how to ward off
Speaker 1: infection in this open wound while they were waiting for
Speaker 1: this skin graft to take So his variation solved this
Speaker 1: problem because it ensured that blood continued to flow through
Speaker 1: the grafted area. So then once the graft had taken root,
Speaker 1: the surgeon could simply sever the tube and sculpt the
Speaker 1: remaining tissue into the patient's new nose and throat. And
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't paint this pretty picture but the
Speaker 1: technique was so successful that the work at Queen's Hospital
Speaker 1: continued long after the war had ended. So in total,
Speaker 1: the hospital performed more than eleven thousand operations on over
Speaker 1: five thousand patients before they finally closed their doors in
Speaker 1: nine five. And Gilly's actually received knighthood for his efforts.
Speaker 1: And when World War two began, he kept working on
Speaker 1: this new set of soldiers that were in the same
Speaker 1: kind of need. That's a tremendous legacy. But you know,
Speaker 1: we we mostly dealt with the reconstructive side of plastic
Speaker 1: surgery so far. So what do you say we switched
Speaker 1: gears and focus on the cosmetic side for a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely makes sense. Actually, I'll start us off with
Speaker 1: something that I was surprised to learn this week. So,
Speaker 1: even with nearly two million cosmetic surgeries performed in the
Speaker 1: US each year, the plastic surgery industry overall has actually
Speaker 1: shrunk by about twelve percent since the year two thousand.
Speaker 1: That's strange. I wouldn't have guessed that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess breast augmentations and liposuction just I mean, maybe they're
Speaker 1: not as appealing as they used to be. Is that right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that those are still the top two cosmetic
Speaker 1: surgeries in the States, with roughly three hundred thousand each
Speaker 1: per year. But on the whole, there are fewer people
Speaker 1: undergoing the knife than there were about, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: years or so ago. But the most interesting part to me,
Speaker 1: at least, was that while cosmetic surgeries are down, the
Speaker 1: number of minimally invasive cosmetic procedures like injection or laser
Speaker 1: hair removal, those numbers are only going up each year.
Speaker 1: So in fact, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports
Speaker 1: that the number of these procedures has grown nearly two
Speaker 1: hundred percent since two thousand, so that's the same period
Speaker 1: that you know, these cosmetic surgeries have been declining. Sure,
Speaker 1: and and I'm sure poker talks is one of the
Speaker 1: biggest reasons for all of exactly. You know, I do
Speaker 1: wonder what's behind that downward shift, Like, is it just
Speaker 1: that the minimally invasive stuff requires less downtime than than
Speaker 1: the full on surgeries or what's going on here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's part of it, you know,
Speaker 1: plus the fact that these procedures are cheaper, they're faster.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, less invasive, like you mentioned. And
Speaker 1: I think it also doesn't hurt that there isn't as
Speaker 1: much stigma around something like microderm abrasion as there might
Speaker 1: be in getting a tummy tuck or a nose job
Speaker 1: or something like that. So I guess it kind of
Speaker 1: comes back to the idea that plastic surgery might still
Speaker 1: carry a connotation of phoniness like and I guess these
Speaker 1: similar types of procedures are a kind of a way
Speaker 1: of sidestepping that stigma while still altering your appearance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, actually, just in looking this up, I
Speaker 1: think that desire for a more natural look as something
Speaker 1: that came up a lot. And there's a really good
Speaker 1: article about this and allure this past month, which is
Speaker 1: a sentence I never really thought i'd be saying, but
Speaker 1: I did want to share a quote from it really quickly.
Speaker 1: The author is Caitlyn Clark, and here's what she writes.
Speaker 1: Disproportionate breast enhancement, overfilled lips, and exaggerated cosmetic procedures in
Speaker 1: general are all trends on their way out. Now. A
Speaker 1: successful plastic surgery or cosmetic procedure should no longer be obvious.
Speaker 1: Patients are increasingly wanting to maintain their general facial structure,
Speaker 1: inherited family traits, and just generally wanting to look like themselves,
Speaker 1: but with a few refined tweaks, which definitely tracks with
Speaker 1: these so called tweakments I read about last week. So um,
Speaker 1: there's this new skin tightening treatment that's supposed to take
Speaker 1: off this year. It's a face tight and it actually
Speaker 1: uses this radio frequency energy to tighten and sculpt the
Speaker 1: skin around your neck and joline. It's it's totally non surgical,
Speaker 1: and the effects supposedly last up to five years, which
Speaker 1: is kind of amazing. And even on the surgical side,
Speaker 1: it seems like smaller, less obvious treatments are how most
Speaker 1: people want to go these days. For instance, there's this
Speaker 1: one procedure that's becoming really popular right now, and it
Speaker 1: addresses something so obscure that you probably forgot. It's even
Speaker 1: a body part. I'm going to guess that we're talking
Speaker 1: about the U viola here at the back of your throw,
Speaker 1: because I've actually heard that can go in and sort
Speaker 1: of like shave it down if it's bothering you. Did
Speaker 1: you know this? I didn't realize that, but I guess
Speaker 1: it's good to know. But you know that the surgery
Speaker 1: I'm talking about is actually for the filtrum, which is
Speaker 1: that little indented space between your nose and your lip,
Speaker 1: and it's sometimes also called cupids bow too. Alright, so
Speaker 1: what exactly are people doing to their filtrum's? Apparently the
Speaker 1: filtrum elongates over time, so a lotng one is a
Speaker 1: pretty clear sign of age for some people. But now
Speaker 1: there's this quick little surgery where you make a tiny
Speaker 1: incision it goes right under the nose, and then lift
Speaker 1: up the lip a little so the filtrum looks smaller.
Speaker 1: And while that might still sound like a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble over something so small and so unnoticeable, the procedure
Speaker 1: tends to be easier and safer than getting lip injections
Speaker 1: or I guess using a bunch of weird fillers to
Speaker 1: pump up your lips. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine
Speaker 1: how this new method might provide a more natural looking result.
Speaker 1: And you know, from everything I've been reading this week,
Speaker 1: it does seem like the average cosmetic surgery patient is
Speaker 1: more interested in this direction nowadays, Like not this complete overhaul,
Speaker 1: but kind of a subtle Like I kept seeing the
Speaker 1: word plusing of what's already there. Yeah, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: shift from the way we used to be with these
Speaker 1: like over the top changes that gave cosmetic surgery such
Speaker 1: a bad rap in the first place. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of potential pitfalls with these procedures,
Speaker 1: not to mention the lingering question of whether all this
Speaker 1: focus on physical appearance and beauty is actually good for us. All.
Speaker 1: We can spend a little bit of time mulling that
Speaker 1: one over. But before we get to that, let's take
Speaker 1: one more quick break, all right, Mago. So before the break,
Speaker 1: you were saying there are still some drawbacks to cosmetic surgery,
Speaker 1: even with all the advancements and the greater focus on
Speaker 1: a more natural look that we see these days. So
Speaker 1: do you have an example of what kind of stuff
Speaker 1: you're you're actually referring to? Yeah, So, why don't we
Speaker 1: go back to nose jobs for a second. We live
Speaker 1: in such an age of wonder is that it's now
Speaker 1: possible to actually reshape your nose without the need for
Speaker 1: any surgery at all. Instead, there are these are non
Speaker 1: surgical nose jobs that you got I guess you inject
Speaker 1: this acid based filler into your nose, and the filler
Speaker 1: then lodges into the imperfections in a person's nose, kind
Speaker 1: of filling in the gaps and smoothing everything into this
Speaker 1: more dreamline shape. I mean, it's interesting because it kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to some of the reconstructive nose jobs
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier in the episode. You know, we're
Speaker 1: you're actually trying to build up the nose rather than
Speaker 1: shave it down like we're used to seeing. But in
Speaker 1: this case, like, what's the concern? Is the filler unsafe? No,
Speaker 1: it's not that. And if I were going to sum
Speaker 1: up the worry, I I think I'd say that the
Speaker 1: procedure makes it too easy to change the shape of
Speaker 1: your nose, and the whole thing takes something like fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of results are visible right away. But you know what,
Speaker 1: while that sounds like it might be a win across
Speaker 1: the board, there's evidence that the ease of access is
Speaker 1: actually resulting in way more people getting nose jobs than
Speaker 1: they would otherwise. But what's concerning is that people are
Speaker 1: changing the shape of their nose or other parts of
Speaker 1: their bodies based on false evidence. And I'm actually gonna
Speaker 1: tell you what this is uh. According to a recent
Speaker 1: report from the American Academy of Facial, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery,
Speaker 1: about fifty five for some of the people who visit
Speaker 1: a plastic surgeon do so because they want to improve
Speaker 1: the look at their selfies. Yeah, that's that's a little disconcerting.
Speaker 1: But I mean, on the other hand, is wanting to
Speaker 1: look better in selfies that much different than wanting to
Speaker 1: look good in a bathing suit or in a wedding photo,
Speaker 1: or you know, like whatever other goal people might have. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, it isn't. But but the red flag in
Speaker 1: this case is that selfies aren't actually an accurate representation
Speaker 1: of the person who took him. In fact, that there
Speaker 1: was a study just last year that found that selfies
Speaker 1: taken too close can make your nose appear about thirty
Speaker 1: larger than it really is. And that makes sense, right, Like,
Speaker 1: like if if your nose sticks out of your face,
Speaker 1: it means it's close to the camera and as a result,
Speaker 1: it's much bigger compared to everything else. I mean, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But but what about the plastic surgeons themselves,
Speaker 1: Like that wouldn't they know that selfies aren't a fair
Speaker 1: representation of their clients that did they just go ahead
Speaker 1: with the procedures anyway. I mean, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's not really their call to make right.
Speaker 1: But some plastic surgeons do try to talk their patients
Speaker 1: out of it whenever possible. So you know, the study
Speaker 1: I mentioned was champion by this facial plastic surgeon named
Speaker 1: Boris pash Kover, and you noticed how frequently his patients
Speaker 1: were showing himselfies to explain why they wanted the surgery.
Speaker 1: So he started taking photos of them from the proper
Speaker 1: portrait distance, which is actually five feet away, just to
Speaker 1: give him a better sense of what their face actually
Speaker 1: looks like. And as Boris put it, quote, I want
Speaker 1: them to realize that when they take a selfie there
Speaker 1: in essence looking into a portable fun house mirror. You
Speaker 1: know that. I do think the elephant in the room
Speaker 1: that we really haven't touched on is that with any
Speaker 1: of the drawbacks we've been talking about, it's women who
Speaker 1: are disproportionately affected by them, because when you look at
Speaker 1: the stance for plastic surgery, eighty five to of the
Speaker 1: patients are women, depending on you know, the specific procedure, right,
Speaker 1: And the thing is people probably aren't too surprised to
Speaker 1: hear that, Like you always hear about how there's, you know,
Speaker 1: an enormous pressure on women to look like other women
Speaker 1: do in movies or magazines or Instagram. And since those
Speaker 1: images are all overproduced and filtered and death from the photoshopped,
Speaker 1: a lot of us end up devoting a lot of
Speaker 1: time and energy chasing something unattainable. Yeah, you're right, and
Speaker 1: it's a legitimate source of pain. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: was reading about this study and Scientific American where the
Speaker 1: researchers found that women who believe they can become more
Speaker 1: beautiful with effort have a higher risk of developing appearance
Speaker 1: based anxiety, and so they're more likely to show an
Speaker 1: interest in cosmetic surgery as a result of this. And
Speaker 1: so that wasn't the case for women who have more
Speaker 1: fixed views on their beauty. Yeah, no, that's right, and
Speaker 1: you know you might expect it wasn't the case for
Speaker 1: men either. But what I did find interesting about this
Speaker 1: is is that believing we can improve a trait really
Speaker 1: can help us achieve that goal. So, just to take
Speaker 1: an example here, people who think that intelligence or creativity
Speaker 1: are malleable, they tend to improve in those areas over time,
Speaker 1: compared to people who don't believe those traits can be changed.
Speaker 1: That's weird. So having an eye towards improvement is actually
Speaker 1: a good thing for the most part. I mean, that
Speaker 1: seems to be the case, but it mostly comes down
Speaker 1: to how realistic your goal is. So, according to the
Speaker 1: co author of the study, your name is Professor Melissa Berkeley,
Speaker 1: here's what she says. She says, prior research has shown
Speaker 1: that malleable beliefs increase motivation, which is good if we're
Speaker 1: talking about being motivated to stay in school or improve
Speaker 1: somebody's math skills. But when the domain is as unrealistic
Speaker 1: as the beauty standards we have for women today, increasing
Speaker 1: motivation may lead to harmful behaviors. So basically, if someone's
Speaker 1: going to alter their appearance, you know, through a procedure
Speaker 1: or surgery, they should make sure they're doing it for
Speaker 1: the right reasons, not not because of how a selfie
Speaker 1: turned out or because of the way a celebrity looks
Speaker 1: on screen, but because they want the outside to better
Speaker 1: reflect how they feel inside. Yeah, and you know, cosmetic
Speaker 1: surgery can be empowering in the same way as reconstructive surgery.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, namely is a way to reclaim
Speaker 1: or reassert your own identity. And that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: who you are should be completely wrapped up and how
Speaker 1: you look, but being comfortable in your own skin. It's
Speaker 1: you know, it's important, and it's crucial for mental health too.
Speaker 1: And if you'd rather just dabble in a lower key approach,
Speaker 1: you can always try facer size. I mean, if it
Speaker 1: works for Trystan, it can work for anybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: he looks younger every single minute, like he's Benjamin Bunding
Speaker 1: right in front of our eyes. All Right, well, that's
Speaker 1: probably enough unsolicited beauty talk for one day, but we
Speaker 1: still have plenty left to chat about him. Today's fact off,
Speaker 1: so let's get to it. According to Colors magazine, Iran
Speaker 1: is the nose job capital of the world, and apparently
Speaker 1: the procedure is expensive enough that it carries a bit
Speaker 1: of a status cloud with it. So um Colors puts
Speaker 1: it this way, people will wear their post surgery bandages
Speaker 1: for months like a badge of honor. Some even wear
Speaker 1: the bandages without undergoing the surgery. Al Right, well, there
Speaker 1: are all sorts of people who are obsessed with celebrities
Speaker 1: and get plastic surgery to look like them. You see
Speaker 1: stories of about them all over the internet, of course,
Speaker 1: and you know people paying to look more like Justin
Speaker 1: Bieber or Kylie Jenner or Lindsay Lohan. But you know,
Speaker 1: one of the most surprising cases is this Chinese writer
Speaker 1: and super fan who has spent almost a quarter of
Speaker 1: a million dollars to get ten surgeries to look like
Speaker 1: guess who Williams Shakespeare. And apparently the only place he
Speaker 1: refuses to spend is the haircut. For some reason, he
Speaker 1: doesn't want the bards receding hairline, but he's been willing
Speaker 1: to grow his hair out just to kind of amplify
Speaker 1: the look. That's great, you know. Weirdly enough, there's a
Speaker 1: surgery to switch your left and right fingerprints by slicing
Speaker 1: them off and grafting them on the other And I
Speaker 1: guess authorities only found out about this in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine when this woman who had been kicked out of
Speaker 1: Japan for overstaying her visa re entered the country and
Speaker 1: then was caught for a different crime. Her name was
Speaker 1: Lynn Wrong. She paid fifteen dollars for the surgery to
Speaker 1: mask her fingerprints and it's been dubbed Japan's first biometric
Speaker 1: fraud crime. All right, well, did you know the inventor
Speaker 1: of botox, who was this opthalmologist named Alan Scott, never
Speaker 1: really cared about wrinkles. So he had this patient who
Speaker 1: had undergone three surgeries for double vision, and this was,
Speaker 1: you know, his way of using like almost like this
Speaker 1: natural duct tape to patch up the eye. So Scott
Speaker 1: says he isn't sure who was more nervous about the
Speaker 1: experimental treatment, him giving it or the patient receiving it.
Speaker 1: But once it was successful, Scott sold the concept to Allergan,
Speaker 1: who immediately realized the skin smoothing benefits. Mhmm, So here's
Speaker 1: something I hadn't realized. Animal plastic surgeries are actually a thing,
Speaker 1: and people have been getting Tommy talks, eyelid lifts, and
Speaker 1: laser nostril procedures for their dogs for a while now.
Speaker 1: And the treatments aren't purely cosmetic. The treatments actually prevent
Speaker 1: bacterial infections and helped the dogs with wrinkled noses breathe better.
Speaker 1: It tends to be a booming industry. Apparently, in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, people spent sixty two million dollars on plastic
Speaker 1: surgery for their pets. But I'm actually gonna tell you
Speaker 1: about one story where it made a huge difference. And
Speaker 1: this was at the Vancouver Aquarium. There was this one
Speaker 1: eyed yellow tail rock fish and the vets they're noticed.
Speaker 1: It was getting bullied by the other fish in the tank,
Speaker 1: like they'd steal its food, they'd attack it from that side,
Speaker 1: and it was just low confidence, I guess. But the
Speaker 1: doctor sewed this big, bright yellow prosthetic eye into the
Speaker 1: socket and now the fish is fatter, he's doing well,
Speaker 1: and he isn't getting bullied anymore. Well, that's a great story. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think that's good enough. I think I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: you take the fact off today. Mango. Well, I'm happy
Speaker 1: about it. Thank you. Well that is it for today's show.
Speaker 1: If you've got facts or topics you want to share,
Speaker 1: you know, we always love hearing from you at Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius and How Stuff Works dot com or find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango
Speaker 1: and me, thanks so much for listening to the Bod