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Unlike the appearanceconscious youths tinkering with
their looks, old people don’t fool around with their faces. What
for? Old people have only two prospects: they are either look
bloated or emaciated.
As people advance in years, some
of them look like bloated balloons. Others shrink like dried up
coconut meat with sunken eyes and cheeks. But who cares?
You ride the train one-day and
somebody taps you on the shoulder. As you turn around, a man, who
looks like a cadaver that escaped from the police morgue, looks into
your eyes and says in a hoarse voce: “Hi. It’s been a long
time.”
You are expected to react in any
of the following ways: You are startled and instinctively you make a
blood-curdling scream. Because you are a man of great fortitude, you
look back coldly and you also say in a well-modulated voice:
“Hi.” Or, you say nothing and give the man one of your best
smiles. Or, you can ask: “Are you a new member of Congress, your
honor?”
People’s appearances change.
Many of us usually fail to recognize an old friend who has grown
old, especially if we have not seen him for many years. A
good-looking man you once know may be unrecognizable because he is
toothless and bald. Or, the cheeks are hollow and the eyes have sunk
deep into their sockets.
“Pare, ako is Pareng Jun mo,”
the cadaver-looking man says slowly and with great effort. What can
you say?
It is likely you would not also
recognize the obese man who gets stuck in the elevator door. When he
tries to squeeze in, the elevator screams: “overload, overload.”
The man shouts back at the voice: “Aw, shut up.” Then you
recognize your other Pareng Jun-jun, who now looks like a Sumo
wrestler. His face is puffed up. There is panic in the bulging eyes.
His hair is mostly grayish. You wonder how he manages to keep his
pants from falling down considering his barrel-like waist. “Pareng
Jun-jun. Ikaw pala iyan,” you say to him. “Ang taba mo, pare.”
How do some people manage to grow
old with grace and with a lot of class? If only we can move around
the fat in our bodies. If only we can get the hairs in the armpit,
for example, to grow on the head instead. After all, we don’t hear
people complain against hairless armpits.
Well, help is on the way.
Scientists say there is hope. It will soon become a reality for old
people to be able to flatten their tummy or boost their busts and
cheeks.
Researchers said they have
figured out how to remove fat from one part of the body and make it
grow in another part. “You could take the fat from your buttocks
and put it in your breasts and cheeks,” said Dr. Zofia Zukowska, a
professor of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington who
led the study.
The researchers said their
findings could benefit people’s health as well as beauty. But we
have to wait because, so far, it has worked only with mice, the
researchers said.
For the research, Zukowska’s
team tried to stress mice in a way that would duplicate human life.
The researchers made the mice stand in cold puddles—akin to riding
a bus with wet feet during the rainy days. They also put the mice
with aggressive mice that might be similar to an angry human boss.
The research showed how and why
stressed out people so often gain weight. They produce a chemical
messenger or neurotransmitter called Neuropeptide Y (NPY) that has
been linked with appetite, weight gain and obesity. Manipulating NPY
offers a new tool for plastic surgeons, Zukowska said.
The study, which was published
online in Nature Medicine, could “revolutionize human cosmetic and
reconstructive surgery and treatment of diseases associated with
human obesity,” according to a statement issued by Georgetown
University Medical Center.
“We couldn’t believe such fat
remodeling was possible but the numerous different experiments
conducted over four years demonstrated that it is, at least, in
mice,” Zukowska said.
With the fat in the right places
in the mice’s body, our old people can hope to have the same
results. Misplaced fat will cease to be an excuse for not looking
good. It means they can forget the bloated or emaciated faces.
Of course, we can never rid
ourselves of cadaver-looking people and they will continue to
startle us in many different ways. But watch out for the
good-looking guy who gives you a big smile on the train and claims
he is your Pareng Jun. Tell him outright: “Sorry, my Pareng Jun is
not good-looking. He looks like a cadaver.”
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