NuFace, Foreo Bear, and Ziip Dermatologist Review

what's up everyone today we're talking about microcurrent devices in skincare so to start it all off a company did send me a microcurrent device to try out and potentially review for social media now trying it out and doing a literature review i decided not to move forward with that and so here we are okay so when i talk about microcurrent it's not a shot at any of the companies that sell microcurrent devices i'm basically talking about the literature as it exists today when it comes to microcurrent technology and how i feel about recommending it to people at this time so this is all about science and not about any of these particular companies the three companies that sell microcurrent devices are new face zip and foreo so those are the three big players in the field so no shots at these companies but this is just a shot at the technology that exists today things may change so that's what's always great about science is that we're always learning new things there's new studies always coming out but as of today of the day that i'm doing this review this is how i feel about the microcurrent literature as it exists today so this is my first day using the microcurrent device the company did send me the product to test out but as you all know i always keep it 100 doesn't matter if they sent it to me or not so these companies make huge claims and i'm really excited to try this out because if i can offer you guys all some non-invasive options for facial rejuvenation to make you look more youthful i'll be happy to offer those to you be honest the devices are a little expensive but if they do what they claim then they're worth it first you got to apply the hyaluronic acid serum that comes with the device so that outward motion helps to kind of move fluid similar to facial massage so that's what they recommend is these outward motions motions against gravity to kind of help with aging so after the first treatment i didn't really notice any discomfort while using this there was no pain at all it actually didn't feel like anything i also didn't notice any benefits yet but it is after one treatment just a little bit of that mild plumping that you get when you use any hyaluronic acid serum like the ones that come with the device but overall no improvement after the first use but i'm gonna give it the 30 days and see how we do so first how did i come to my conclusions one i tried out the device for 30 days so that's n equals one that's only me trying it out but that's my opinion of the device from trying it out two me doing an exhaustive literature review so i spent hours down the rabbit hole looking at microcurrent studies hundreds of studies i read to come to these conclusions it was like one of those times where you go down the internet rabbit hole and you just keep clicking clicking clicking until you find answers so that's my literature review that i did and then i went to the websites of the companies that sell these devices and they actually make claims on the website and they also cite their sources and so i read all those articles as well so there are many claims that these companies make about these devices but ultimately they're supposed to make you look more youthful and one of the main things that these companies claim that these devices do is strengthen and tone muscle in the face strengthening the muscles in the face could potentially lead to a more youthful appearance by increasing volume in the face which can help to smooth out wrinkles okay so in a minute i'm going to dive into the research that's actually been done on microcurrent but to start it all off the premise here is inherently flawed why do i say that because they're making the assumption that muscle atrophy or sarcopenia is a major contributing to the aging face although muscle loss can slightly contribute to aging in the face the major contributors of aging in the face is actually redistribution of fat in the face bone resorption and remodeling loss of dermal collagen and thinning of the epidermis so way below all these factors is muscle loss in the face there was actually a wonderful study in the journal of plastic and reconstructive surgery where they did mris of the face to look at the soft tissue compartments to see which soft tissue compartments changed with aging so they mri younger women and they mri older women and they looked at the different compartments to see which areas had changed and this study got me all charged up because i used to specialize in radiology and so they're talking about mris and i'm like this is my wheelhouse right now and what they found was that fat distribution in the face and the size of the fat compartments in the face did change but what didn't change was the volume of facial muscles and they actually came to the conclusion in the discussions of the article that although atrophy of muscle occurs in the rest of the body as we age that that degree of atrophy likely doesn't occur in the face just because we're always moving our face so this very concept of understanding facial aging has literally revolutionized plastic surgery and cosmetic dermatology so back in the day they just used to put implants and fillers and locations that they thought that fullness needed to be achieved but it's actually advances in the understanding of what occurs during aging that has really advanced the field of cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery so instead of doing cosmetic surgery and changing things in a way that are unnatural what they have done now is that they have studied how the face age is how the bone remodels how the fat compartments change how things move in the direction of gravity all those factors to make a more natural appearance when they do plastic surgery so instead of putting filler in a location that you actually haven't lost volume they put fillers in locations where we know the aging face loses volume so understanding that muscle loss not a major contributor to facial aging is actually really important because it wouldn't be something that we're going to actively target in our cosmetic procedures but i will concede that there was a study that showed that facial exercises could modestly improve the facial fullness and another study that showed that electromuscular stimulation so stimulation with electrical current that actually causes muscle contraction that you can feel that that also slightly increase facial fullness and youthfulness and so those studies do exist but the thing is that microcurrent doesn't actually cause muscle contraction you can't actually feel the microcurrent your muscles are actually not contracting and so using that study to justify microcurrent actually doesn't even work and like i said the premise of muscle loss is slightly flawed the last thing that i want to say is that muscle hypertrophy or increased muscle strength and muscle movements can actually lead to wrinkles which is why we use botox to paralyze the muscles temporarily to help soften wrinkles and so i don't even know that increasing muscle bulk or muscle strength would be a good thing long term for the face it would actually likely lead to more wrinkles long term okay so we're off to a bad start here because muscle loss is only a minor part of aging of the face and second increased muscle tone could potentially lead to worsening wrinkles so one to three which is what you all came here for before listening to my ted talk is does microcurrent even work and where is the literature on it all right so there was some study done a while back that showed that microcurrent devices could increase the atp that's available and then potentially lead to increased protein synthesis in tissue so that's a really interesting mechanism so what does that actually mean in terms of rejuvenation of the face well it's essentially meaningless because this is a mouse study we have no idea what that's going to mean for rejuvenation of the face having atp available locally is an interesting concept and it could help potentially atp is essentially biological energy that we need to complete daily function so when you contract your muscles you use up atp and when you eat a lot of sugar you store atp and then when you undergo aerobic respiration you produce atp and so atp is biological energy essentially so increasing that locally seems promising but what does it actually mean in a person we don't really know for facial rejuvenation there's another study done on mice that showed the microcurrent after injury to the tissue occurred could help repair the muscle and then there's another study that was done in humans that showed that microcurrent could increase muscle strength but what they did in the study was they applied the current for like 40 minutes or something and then they measured right afterwards the muscle strength and the ability to complete certain tasks so this is not something that they did long term this was a one and done type of study so again what does that mean for facial rejuvenation we have no idea okay when it comes to mouth studies mouth studies are a dime a dozen so if you're like me and you've read thousands of research articles in your career and doing research you'll find a mouse study for almost anything in fact you could find a mouse study that says that turmeric builds muscle and so mouth studies are a good start from a scientific perspective when you're looking for something you find a mouse study it may lead you in the right direction but ultimately it's not conclusive in humans which is why we then go on to do human clinical trials the studies that have been done in humans uh which are minimal to be honest are a little bit more promising but the only problem with them is that we don't know what the settings were on these microcurrent devices we don't know what exact current they were using we don't know what voltage they were using we don't know often how long they applied the device for so there's so many things inherently wrong with it that we don't actually know if it applies to these commercially available devices like the new phase that that we're selling right so um even though in some of these studies uh there was some benefits to microcurrents we don't know if they actually apply to the devices that we're actually selling and the last thing i found when doing my comprehensive literature review is that the most research in microcurrent that actually looks promising has been done in the wound care literature so it seems as if when microcurrent is applied to wounds that it can actually help to speed up the healing process and help things heal better so that's actually the most promising literature and literally no one's talking about it none of these websites are talking about it so in wound healing it may actually be beneficial and so that's a little bit where the promise is is it stimulating fibroblasts to build collagen what is it doing it's actually helping with wound healing we don't exactly know at this time but that's actually where it looks the most promising to me so i'd actually like to see microcurrent devices used for potentially helping wound healing procedures so for example after you get micro needling done or after you get laser resurfacing done it would be nice to actually try to use micro needling in those situations to help to boost collagen and help repair the skin faster potentially so i think that that would actually be a really applicable role for microcurrent at this time but the other rules right now that just doesn't seem to be any data for facial rejuvenation with microcurrent all right so this is my day 30 of using the microcurrent device to be honest i didn't notice any substantial benefit to my skin at all but i also didn't experience any side effects really was hoping that this was going to be the holy grail of my skincare routine was relaxing but even though it's only five minutes a day i find that to be pretty time consuming i did notice maybe it helped a little bit with puffiness in the morning other than that i really couldn't tell the difference with it overall i'm disappointed but we'll find something better as you all know i'm always trying to empower you guys to take care of your skin at home i'm always looking for new natural ways for you to improve your skin this one just didn't do it one thing i learned in medical school is that i'm constantly humbled all the time there's always new research coming out there are always things that i don't know there are new studies that are always coming out and so i'm constantly learning new things and adapting to that so i'm not saying that these devices don't work at all and that they're going to have no role in facial rejuvenation in the future what i'm saying is as the literature exists today as it's been researched today there's not enough research to suggest you should be using this in facial rejuvenation now if you're somebody that's used this device and you really like it there's one potential reason why you get that immediate pumping effect is that all these devices are using a hyaluronic acid serum that comes with the device in order to track it over the face right so it's a pretty uh heavy hyaluronic acid serum that you apply to the skin and then you you run the device over it and we know that hyaluronic acid causes an immediate pumping effect as a very strong humectant so it could be the hyaluronic acid that's helping to smooth out those wrinkles temporarily and not the microcurrent device at all so i'm not saying that the technology doesn't work because i'm sure there are people out there that you'll find you'll find other reviews where people will say i use the device it helped me so much look at these pictures that i did and i'm not saying it doesn't work what i'm saying is that if for me you know as a doctor to recommend something to somebody and it's going to cost 300 for you to go out and buy it and try it i'd like to have some research that suggests that this has been used on the face and it's helped with facial rejuvenation and this is why it helps with facial rejuvenation here's the science behind it and it doesn't need to apply to that particular device all the time but at least show me the technology works and why it works and then i can say okay let's consider recommending that to somebody after i try it when you have three major companies marketing these devices aggressively for 300 plus you want to have at least some studies that show that it works so what i want to do is i want to challenge these companies instead of putting money towards ads and everything let's talk about putting some money towards doing a clinical trial on this it would actually be really easy to do all you have to do is give 100 people a sham device that doesn't work and tell them to use it for 30 days and then you give another 100 people a device that does work and then you have an independent evaluator that doesn't know which device a person used look at photographs of the person or evaluate them in person it would probably cost you less and then once you have the data behind it then people like me will be willing to recommend something like that and so at this time i can't recommend a device like this just because i don't think that the science is there behind it but if you're somebody that's using the device you know i don't think it's harmful unless potentially you have a pacemaker or some type of implantable device that's going to actually pick up current the risk with that would be relatively low but i think these are relatively safe devices overall so if you're using it and you love it i'm not saying to stop using it i would just like to see more research before i start recommending it to people to spend 300 okay so one the device didn't work for me two i think the premise is inherently flawed that building muscle is going to help with facial rejuvenation and three i think the science is just not there for these particular devices at this time so i'd rather spend 300 on things that we know will help something like a retinoid something like vitamin c something like niacinamide or procedures that we know that work they might be slightly more expensive but they'll be more effective for sure micro needling laser resurfacing botox filler things that we actually know works or do nothing at all but at the end of the day save your 300 and as soon as the information comes out that says these are the holy grail skin care products i'll be the first one to log back in and let you guys know all about it but for now i hope you guys found this helpful please like comment and subscribe please let me know your thoughts and your experiences with these devices like i said i don't know everything but but i just know that science isn't there right now so stay safe enjoy your holiday season everyone and save some money [Music]

Channel: Doctorly

Views: 230,174

Rating: 4.8670535 out of 5

Keywords: microcurrent, foreo bear, foreo, nuface, ziip, dermatologist, skincare

Id: JZSAZyBZmz0

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/oilisfoodforcars]

Man, I hope that he’s wrong because I just bought one that’s arriving today. There’s definitely lots of anecdotal evidence that it works. 🤞