The Evolution of Carrot Top

TMZ.com has a post on the Evolution of Carrot Top, the comedian with the frizzy red hair. He's undergone quite a few changes over the years, not the least of which is an excessively arched brow possibly due to a combination of Botox and a Browlift. His face looks extremely smooth as well, and may be the result of laser treatments or chemical peels.
No matter what he has done, one thing doesn't change: My delight that his extremely annoying 1-800 Call ATT commercials are no longer on the air.

Photo and story credit: tmz.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

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Which Presidential Candidate Most Matches Your Views?

Every so often there is an interesting non-plastic surgery website that I like to pass on to readers. This is a good one.
Selectsmart.com has a questionaire that matches you up with whichever presidential candidate most matches your views. There are 26 questions in all (takes 5 minutes, tops), and it allows you to place certain emphasis on issues which are most important to you (Iraq War, Health Care, Reefer, etc.). Try it and let me know if you are surprised at your results!

FYI: My top two matches were Rudy Giuliani (62%) and Hillary Clinton (61%), so I'm still undecided! Not surprising, since I am somewhat of a 'moderate.'

Link to site: click here.

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Quick Hits

1. A 32 year old Toronto woman dies after having liposuction performed by a family physician/cosmetic surgeon. This is an unfortunate reminder that there are too many non-plastic surgeons who are performing plastic surgery without informing their patients of their lack of training and credentials. A cosmetic surgeon is not the same as a plastic surgeon. Click here for the article. Click here for my website page on how to choose a plastic surgeon.

2. Heidi Montag confirms that she's had a breast augmentation and rhinoplasty. Really? I didn't notice. Click here.

3. The Australian navy spent over $1.1 million for aesthetic plastic surgery (tummy tucks, breast augmentation, etc.) on its service personnel. I've heard stories about this with the U.S. military too, but have no concrete information on it. On a not-quite-so-related note, did you know that Medicare pays for penile implants for old men with erectile dysfunction? We have people living on the streets and children going without proper health care, and our tax dollars pay for this? Sigh. Click here.

Photo credit: prphotos.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

The Formula for Perfect Breasts?

A British cosmetic surgeon has announced that he has developed a 'formula' for determining what he believes are the perfect breasts. He spent hours pouring over topless models to develop his theories. In his opinion, the celebrity with the most perfect breasts is Caprice, and the one with the worst breasts is Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice). According to the Daily Mail:

Mr Mallucci said: "These findings allowed me to form a template around which to plan a breast augmentation, and set a standard of aesthetics.
Obviously personal interpretation and expression has to be accounted for, but this has allowed me to develop a template that I have been using successfully for some time. The key aesthetic elements are nipple position and the proportion between the upper and lower halves of the breast, he said.
The ideal is a 45 to 55 per cent proportion - that is the nipple sits not at the half-way mark down the breast, but at about 45 per cent from the top..."

Mr. Malluci is not the first plastic surgeon who has attempted to simplify beauty into a mathematical formula. Dr. Steve Hoefflin is a plastic surgeon who developed a very complex mathematical equation for facial beauty, which he described in his book "The Beautiful Face." In it, he uses the 'angles' and 'highlights' of a face to develop a numerical score of beauty. It's extremely complicated, but definitely interesting.

Here's my take: I don't like the idea of distilling everything down to mathematics. While it seems that everything nowadays can be explained by math (such as why music sounds melodic), I believe that beauty is not something that needs to be completely explained in this way. When performing plastic surgery, I do use some of these mathematical formulas to help determine what will give my patient the best result, but there is definitely an element of 'using my eye' to it as well. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. (And I'm sure that David Beckham likes his wife's breasts!)

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Barry Manilow's Plastic Surgery

Barry Manilow recently performed for the Today show. Wow, has he had some work done! According to the National Enquirer (Aug 6, 2007), he underwent a facelift in 1995, another facelift with upper and lower blepharoplasty in 2003, and an additional facelift in 2006, as well as regular Botox injections.

When you compare his 'before' photo (1978) with the photo taken just a week ago, you can see that his brows and eyelids look very similar. His cheeks, however, are quite a bit fuller now, possibly signifying overdone fat grafting, cheek implants, or both. His skin is unnaturally taut for a 61 year old man, a sign of the previously mentioned facelifts with possible chemical peels or laser treatments.

While it's nice to hear that his voice sounds as pristine as ever, I'd like to see a bit more natural aging to his face. I believe that facial plastic surgery can create a very natural appearance when the goal is to take 10-20 years off someone. When we start to go after 25, 30, or even 40 years then people start looking fake. Maybe he should dedicate his song, "I Can't Smile Without You," to his plastic surgeon (no, not me).

Photo credit: pr photos.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

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Man wakes up during his own autopsy

An interesting, non-plastic surgery story: A Venezuelan man woke up in a morgue after a car wreck in extreme pain-- during his own autopsy. According to Reuters.com:

Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.
“I woke up because the pain was unbearable,” Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.

I'm just a plastic surgeon, but whenever I declared someone dead (as a general surgery resident) I would usually check to make sure they weren't breathing and had no pulse. Just a thought.

Thanks to Kevin MD medical blog for the story.

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Breast Augmentation News Story on Fox 2 Detroit

I was recently featured on a the local Fox affiliate here in Detroit in a segment about the rising popularity of silicone gel implants. They follow one of my patients through her breast augmentation surgery with Memory Gel implants. Check it out here if you have a minute and are interested.

Thanks to Lila Lazarus and Sean Lee of Fox 2 Detroit for the nice story!

Thanks for reading.
Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.: