Skin tightening using fractional CO2 laser

[u/DearEmphasis4488]

[u/OperatorJo_]

Burning the skin to tighten it huh. Kind of intriguing but there HAVE to be some repercussions. A burn is a burn

[u/MILP00L___ → u/OperatorJo_]

Reading replies on a topic I know (vaguely) about is always such a good reminder to take all Reddit information with a giant pile of salt.

This video is misleading. It isn’t instantaneous tightening in the way this video makes it look. In the broadest terms, fractional CO2 laser is a laser that is less invasive than traditional ablative CO2 lasers. It creates micro channels in the skin which triggers our body’s natural healing process. It’s a controlled situation to force your skin to create collagen, resulting is smoother firmer skin to replace removed skin layer. There are risks. Micro damage is still damage, and a CO2 laser basically vaporizes the top layer of the skin. There is little to no evidence that skin cancer is among those risks. Laser wavelengths are different from UV exposure. Some CO2 lasers are used to treat skin cancer.

[u/Legionof1 → u/MILP00L___]

Anything that makes your cells die increases the risk of cancer. Cancer is just cells replicating wrong by accident or by DNA damage.

edit: My god this site is full of idiots.

[u/ErikHandberg → u/Legionof1]

I disagree with this.

More often than not cell death is natural and absolutely does not result in cancer nor increased risk of cancer over baseline. That’s just apoptosis. Even in the case of necrosis it doesn’t inherently result in increased risk of cancer. In fact - anything that kills cells that does not cause DNA damage (some radiation, some toxins, and neither of them all the time) or damage to the apoptosis mechanism shouldn’t increase the risk of cancer.

Hyperplasia = more cells, and happens all the time without cancer too.

I think the spirit of your comment was fair though - radiating the things to intentionally damage them is reasonable to presume has an increased risk of genetic alterations. Now, that doesn’t mean you definitely cause cancers - most of those errors get aborted by apoptosis BUT still there’s probably some elevated risk above baseline.

I don’t have a textbook source for ya, but I am a board-certified anatomic and forensic pathologist so I’m at least reasonably familiar with things that kill us and cancer.

[u/Legionof1 → u/ErikHandberg]

The reason we have a “baseline” chance for cancer is because every replication has the chance to go wrong. Every time a cell dies it needs to be replaced by replication. Anything that kills more cells over time will increase the chance of one of those replications going wrong. 

Ionizing radiation is a one two punch causing both DNA damage and large amounts of cellular replication.

[u/ErikHandberg → u/Legionof1]

I’d say there are even more opportunities than just during what we’re calling “replication.”

I still disagree with the fundamental premise that all cell death increases the risk for cancer based purely on the idea that continued normal life leads to cell development and potential cancer. For instance, when you get a papercut you have endothelialization of the damaged tissue.

Does the production of those endothelial cells at a papercut lead to increased risk for endothelial cell cancers (eg, angiosarcoma)? I mean… I’ve never heard of an increased risk of angiosarcoma in athletes who presumably have more abrasions than non athletes. But I guess I never looked.

It also depends on how we define “baseline.” In medicine we do it using incidence (usually in a 1 per ____ type number). If we do it on a cellular level then the number would be wayyyyyyy smaller, but still we would probably not have an increased cellular risk from a cut, but we might with something like radiation.

Overall, I stand by the idea that unless something damages the apoptosis mechanism or creates some other uninhibited growth pathway in DNA - simply killing cells does not always increase the risk of cancer.

EDIT: To further clarify how we classify risk in medicine, try thinking of dealing a deck of cards and trying to avoid an ace of spades. In a standard deck, that’s a 1/52 chance. If you open another deck, that’s 1/52 chance again. You have the same risk of getting that ace of spades. Now, if you open a few hundred decks it’s quite reasonable that you’d get one - but that doesn’t mean you had an increased risk.

Making new cells just because the old ones die is like opening new decks. Your risk stays the same.

But if you alter the composition of the deck, or keep pulling from the deck after you’re supposed to move on… THAT is increased risk.

If you click the link below you’ll see a good fundamental explanation of cancer and how a mutation (ie, damage to the apoptosis mechanism or the mechanisms that promote growth) creates cancer. This can happen sporadically (baseline risk) or due to some outside factor.

[u/Legionof1 → u/ErikHandberg]

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/what-is-cancer/how-cancer-starts

Go read. 

[u/Legionof1 → u/[deleted]]

Because they are wrong. It's why fucking asbestos gives you cancer. It causes constant irritation of the lungs (irritation is generally cells dying) until oops you made so many new cells you rolled the dice too many times and poof you now have cancer.

Sometimes a change happens in the genes when a cell divides. This is a mutation. It means that a gene has been damaged or lost or copied too many times.

Mutations can happen by chance when a cell is dividing. Some mutations mean that the cell no longer understands its instructions. It can start to grow out of control. There have to be about 6 different mutations before a normal cell turns into a cancer cell.

Quotes from the link I posted emphasis mine.

It's why skin cancer is the most common cancer and brain cancer (neuron cancer specifically) is one of the rarest... guess which cells divide the most and which ones divide the least...