Dr. Sandra Lee says gravity is not to blame for your aging face.

Nov. 29, 2010 - PRLog -- Pull up on your face and you may briefly remove some years from that reflection in the mirror. But is it accurate to blame the forces of gravity for the sagging of once-youthful features? "Probably not," says Dr. Sandra Lee, a board certified dermatologist who practices in Upland, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Many doctors now say evidence suggests that gravity's role in aging has been exaggerated, and that the downward movement of facial skin over time is an illusion. The real villain, they say,  is the loss of volume underneath the skin.

''People assume that the face falls because when you pull back on the cheeks everything looks better,'' says Dr. Lee. ''If you look closely you can see that different points on the face really don't move that much. It's really all about facial volume restoration.''

See Dr. Lee on her YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/drsandralee

Comparisons of photographs of people taken at different points in their lives tell the story. Older photos and recent pictures, when aligned, allow Dr. Lee to track the movement of moles, wrinkles and other facial landmarks. Interestingly, only a few features shift over time. The subjects' brows fell slightly and their upper lips thinned. Their jowls became more prominent, but they expanded rather than dropped. Every other feature in the photographs remained perfectly still.
 
What actually robs many people of their youthful appearances is something called deflation. ''It's the loss of underlying fat and volume,'' says Dr. Lee.  “As we age, the volume in our faces slowly diminishes eventually leading to a “hollowed out” look in the cheek areas, around the eyes and the mid-face. A full facial contour with good volume is one of the characteristics of a youthful look.”

Dr. Lee says that a combination of specialized facial fillers can create volume and lift in strategic areas of the face to turn the clock back on  a person's appearance. The technique is designed for each individual to address areas of volume loss and sagging. Often the skin's appearance will also seem to improve when the underlying foundation is restored.

Women and men often notice their faces looking hollowed-out as the years go by. When volume is lost as we age, the whole face sags. And when you restore the underlying foundation, the structure and youthful characteristics of the face are restored.

For more information visit Dr. Sandra Lee's website at http://www.skinps.com