ABSTRACT
Aesthetic surgeons and physicians are used to observing the effects of aging on the face and body. As a new century dawns, they now have an opportunity to understand and interact with the causes of aging on the most fundamental level. Since the early 1990s, many physicians have asked him, “How does a plastic surgeon become interested and involved in anti-aging medicine?” Aside from an innate interest in general, it became obvious to author, as he examined his patients for potential cosmetic surgical procedures, that he was witnessing the effects of what was occurring at a more intimate, deeper level: within the cellular structures of their bodies. It was this sudden insight that has fueled his desire to understand what caused these effects. More important, he wanted to know what he could do to influence the origins of aging, rather than simply operate on the effects of aging.
