Spring has come; the beach of the coming summer is thought about … and the image sent back by the mirror at the end of this winter is not clearly in favor of a bath cloth. Cellulite is there? The orange peel is seeable? Can one rely upon cosmetics to overcome these unsightly signs within very few months? To a small extent, yes … very small. This is the opinion of Thierry Oddos, from the Johnson & Johnson’s Research and Development Department, given during the Toniques & Minceur 2013 Convention, organized by the French Society of Anti-oxidants on the 5th April.
In most cases, cellulite is not an illness, but the result of a change in the structure of the skin fat tissues, in the dermis and the hypodermis.
In fact, the word itself is mistakenly used, as cellulite applies, from a medical point of view, to an inflammation of the cutaneous tissues, and not to the widely seen orange peel (or pads).
Not that linked to overweight (one may have an orange peel-like skin, even when slim), the problem is mainly a female one: from 80% to 98% of women would be affected, against 20% of men. This discrepancy could be due to a different direction of the cutaneous fibers in men and women.
The reasons for the phenomena appear to be diverse: underlying since puberty, with the progressive accumulation of fats in the skin, it could also come from micro-vascular changes, genetic factors, the influence of hormones (estrogens increase lipogenesis, i.e. the overall biochemical processes that allow for the synthesis of lipids, and, in particular, of fatty acids, as well as the permeability of the blood vessels …).
There are four different "cellulite" grades:
• Grade 1: there is no visible change on the skin’s surface; however, a microscopic examination …
