Next-Gen Global Approach to Ageless Aesthetics Over 40

The U.S. anti-aging market was around $18 billion in 2022, and is expected to grow to over $34 billion by 2032, driving new research and treatment innovations to keep pace with the growing demands for aesthetic treatments to rewind the clock and reverse the inevitable signs of age.¹ The over 40 age demographic, particularly women, are starting to speak out about the uncontrollable physical changes that come with middle age and lower hormones, especially when it comes to menopause. Menopause is finally starting to get the attention it is due and driving treatment innovations to combat this significant physical upset that comes for every woman.

The aesthetic innovations leading this revolution in anti-aging are centered around balancing hormones with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) capable of offering anti-aging treatment options that go above and beyond anything that the medical aesthetics industry has seen before and the regenerative aesthetics movement that is gradually finding ways to literally turn back the clock on a cellular level. The combination of these three breakthrough innovations in aesthetics is taking the concept of reversing the aging process through a concentrated holistic approach and turning it into a reality.

Khoi Vu, M.D., is one practitioner taking advantage of this three-pronged approach to holistic anti-aging, combining hormone balancing and restoring physical health with AI and regenerative aesthetic treatments to help his patients over 40 restore their lost youth and vitality from the inside out. “What we try to do first is balance your body and give your body what it needs. Typically, around 40 to 50 years old, hormone levels have dropped, so we will first balance your hormones. Then we want to make sure patients are eating correctly. We usually suggest something like the keto, or some other kind of fasting diet that works for most people. Then we add in supplements, around four or five supplements that we should all be taking for our health, suggest an exercise plan for roughly three to four days a week, make sure patients are getting enough sleep and minimizing their stress. Once you do that, you can help patients mostly bounce back, and then you can do anti-aging therapy using different regenerative and rejuvenating aesthetic tools to restore and rejuvenate patients’ youthful appearance and help them achieve their aesthetic goals,” explains Dr. Vu. 

Adressing Physical Health: Balancing Hormones

The first step of a holistic approach to aesthetics and anti-aging is to address any hormone imbalances and restore hormones to their optimal levels. Dr. Vu states, "Once you reach between 40 and 50 years old, people's health just goes straight downward. I first want to balance your body and keep your body healthy. This way patients can avoid poor health, sickness, disability, etc. The goal of anti-aging is not for us to live forever, but rather help patients live to their 50's, 60's, 70's, etc., and still have a vibrant, active body, a sharp mind, the ability to be independent, have a good quality of life and still feel like they can live their lives to the fullest. That's the goal."

Diagnosing Hormonal Imbalances

Before incorporating aesthetic treatments, any potential underlying causes of health concerns patients may have need to be assessed. This involves running a hormone blood test to identify or rule out any deficiencies. Many hormones can fall out of balance, causing a variety of unpleasant symptoms depending on the unique role that hormone plays in the body. Hormone imbalance can occur as a result of medications, stress, menopause, age, a medical condition and more, negatively affecting different processes in the body, such as metabolism, growth and development and reproduction. 

“Usually around the age of 40 years or older, we start noticeably aging. When women go through menopause around 50 years old, depending on the individual, hormone levels drop significantly.  During your teens and 20’s your hormones are at their highest level, which is why you're young and vibrant. Once you hit your 30’s, your hormones start going down, but in these early stages, you don't notice it as much. Once you get to 40 years old, you notice more that your body is aging. You’re more tired, a bit more fatigued than before,” states Dr. Vu.

• Menopause:  During menopause the ovaries production of estrogen and progesterone declines until it ceases completely as women approach the end of their monthly menstrual cycle. Symptoms and the speed at which they progress can vary and include hot flashes, insomnia, weight fluctuation, fatigue, mood swings and excessive sweating. Dr. Vu explains, "Once you hit 50 and menopause, that means you have no hormones. At that point your body declines physically and you have an accelerating agent. So, I check all your hormones, do blood and saliva tests and to see what your hormone levels are. If they're low, then I will raise those levels back to their optimal point or the level they were at when the individual was a teenager. Regular blood tests will have a range, but it reflects the hormone levels of an older body. If treatment is based on this scale, you'll feel like you still have an older body. But you will feel the way you did when you were younger, if we return your hormones to their original optimal levels, so that is what we do." 
• Thyroid:  Hypothyroidism (low thyroid) can occur as a result of the aging process, genetics, medications, medical conditions, gender and more. Around 20 million Americans have a thyroid disorder, mostly hypothyroidism, with 60% unaware of their condition. Women are roughly five to eight times more likely to have thyroid problems than men, with around one in eight women developing a thyroid disorder within her lifetime. The likelihood of women developing a thyroid problem increases with age, most commonly occurring between the ages of 30 and 50.² The most common symptoms include weight fluctuations, depression, low energy, muscle weakness, dry skin, increased sensitivity to cold and increased blood cholesterol, among others. “Women in fact need the most attention for hormone imbalances of the thyroid. We find zero women past 50 that don’t suffer from low thyroid levels and most men past 40 have low thyroid. The blood test doctors use for thyroid levels is very inaccurate. They typically check the precursor to the thyroid, using the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) screen test. It's just a screen test. If it says you might have low thyroid, you have low thyroid. But if it says you don't have low thyroid, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. We check the T3 thyroid hormone itself, and we check to see if you have any virus in your thyroid. Even if you have low thyroid, doctors will generally put you on something like levothyroxine, which is synthetic. We don't use that. It doesn't work. Instead, we use natural, bioidentical hormones to balance thyroid hormone deficiencies, and that works in pretty much everybody,” says Dr. Vu.
• Testosterone: While low testosterone can be a result of aging, it can also occur because of an injury to the testical, a medical condition and other factors. Symptoms of low testosterone can include low lobido, depression, sexual disfunction (erectile disfunction), fatigue, low energy, hair loss, hot flashes, decreased muscle mass, gynecomastia and more. According to Dr. Vu, "The most important hormone for men is testosterone. Previously, we would see men begin to have low testosterone levels around 40 or 50 years old. Now we see teenagers with low testosterone. The testicles are not protected like the ovaries, so someone could get kicked or injured. The worst thing for testicles are having cell phones and laptops next to them. So, we are now seeing teenage patients here with lower testosterone. They're feeling more like 78-year-old men, and they act like that. They’re tired, fatigued, have no libido, no zest and are depressed. When your teenager used to be running around without a care in the world, their parents are then like, ‘What's wrong with my kid?’ Once we balance their testosterone levels, they feel like normal guys again.”

Balancing Hormones: Treatments

Once any hormone imbalances are diagnosed, treatments like hormone replacement therapy restore deficient hormone levels to their optimal state. This noticeably improves patients’ physical health and appearance, and primes cells to better respond to aesthetic treatments that are subsequently incorporated into individual patient treatment plans. 

• Hormone Replacement Therapy: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) utilizes natural and bioidentical hormones to treat various hormone imbalances, which increase in likelihood with age. Bioidentical hormones are able to interact seamlessly with the body’s hormone receptors, restoring patients’ hormone levels to a more youthful state. This helps patients feel better physically as well as function efficiently. "Once we do that, usually within days or weeks patients feel better physically and mentally. With their hormone levels balanced, patients then also age slower," states Dr. Vu.
• NAD+ Therapy: Your body relies on a compound called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) crucial to its overall function, responsible for running your metabolism, giving you energy and repairing DNA damage. NAD+ therapy is an anti-aging therapy that stimulates cell regeneration, improving your physical and mental health, with numerous benefits including DNA repair, anti-aging, improved memory and cognition, weight management, increased energy, detoxification from substances, athletic performance and increased lifespan. NAD+ therapy is particularly beneficial for patients with a chronic condition like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue, or a sleep disorder. The treatment administers NAD+ molecules via three different methods: intravenously (100% absorption rate), via subcutaneous shots (60% absorption rate) and sublingual spray (60% absorption rate).          

Lifestyle Treatment Plan

Once the crucial first step of balancing patients' hormones is completed, giving patients a diet and lifestyle treatment plan is paramount to helping them build upon their improved physical health and take advantage of the boost resulting from their optimized hormone levels. Dr. Vu advises patients start taking six supplements that comprise the essential vitamins and minerals every individual should take for their health, including fish oil, vitamin D, vitamin C, probiotics, melatonin and vitamin A. In addition, patients are given a diet to follow, with Dr. Vu suggesting some kind of fasting diet like keto that patients can follow without too much difficulty and will aid in any desired weight loss, improve their health further and help improve possible conditions such as diabetes. Add to this an exercise plan for roughly 3 to 4 days a week and a plan to improve and ensure good sleeping habits and minimize stress, and patients have a treatment plan designed to tackle the initial challenge of improving their physical health, with the added benefit of this also improving skin health and overall appearance. 

Dr. Vu explains, "I'll teach them how to fish instead of giving them a fish. So, we're really teaching patients why they need these things in their body, why they need to take supplements and eat in this manner. We give them insight into why you want to do it. This gives patients the tools and ability to take responsibility for maintaining their health. Big pharma has spread the message that when your physical health breaks down to rely on prescription medication to fix it, but it doesn't work like that. To have good health, you have to earn it, you have to invest in it. To maintain a healthy, vibrant body takes time and dedication. That's why we're trying to get patients to adopt a more health conscious rather than sickness conscious mindset. Once you switch to a health conscious frame of mind, you make different decisions."

By focusing on addressing patients’ physical health and the underlying causes of what is making them age faster, including the consideration of hormone imbalances that increase as we age and contribute significantly to our aesthetic concerns as we reach middle age, these deficiencies, which also result in less-than-optimal outcomes after aesthetic treatments, can be fixed. This in turn, will improve skin health and appearance while also metabolically optimizing the body’s cells to better respond to cosmetic treatments for optimal results.  “Health is your most precious thing. It's health span, not lifespan that you're enjoying, so that’s why we want to try to help you heal on these levels,” states Dr. Vu. “All of it is connected. You need your body health and your gut health because that affects skin health as well as your mental health. It's all tied together.”

Incorporating Aesthetic Treatments

Once the body is metabolically optimized with healthy cells now primed to respond to aesthetic treatments and optimize treatment results, incorporating aesthetic treatments can help accelerate appearance-related enhancements resulting from improved physical health.

“My goal is to build your inside first, like first building the engine of your car. Once you first build your engine, your body, then you can choose to enhance the appearance of your exterior with aesthetic technologies. I want to help you heal yourself, so we focus on inner health to first get people to the point where they are internally healthy. And when you're healthy, you get better results. Now there are aesthetic technologies that can help patients accelerate these results without the need for surgery, treatments that may cause a lot of pain or the use of synthetic chemicals. The technology now is just so incredible that even in your 50’s or 60’s, you can still look like you’re in your late 30’s or 40’s. You don't have to go through the normal aging process in the way that your dad or mom did. You can basically use technology to improve your health, your life, your looks, etc.”

Aesthetic Treatments for the Face

Without a doubt, the advances in AI technology and regenerative aesthetic treatments, in the form of innovative new devices as well as injectable treatments, are taking the medical aesthetics industry and our ability to fight and even reverse the aging process to unprecedented new heights. “AI is revolutionizing the skincare industry, especially when it comes to anti-aging,” states Dr. Vu. “We are excited to offer AI treatment packages to our clients, because it’s a natural and effective way to achieve remarkable results without invasive procedures.”

• RF Microneedling AI:  AI microneedling is used to initiate the body's natural repair process and skin remodeling, thereby stimulating collagen production to improve skin elasticity, reduce fine lines and plump the skin for a more youthful and radiant appearance. This technology utilizes a combination of monopolar radiofrequency (RF) and artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize a single-pass treatment for the heating and coagulation of deep tissues, allowing for penetration of up to 8mm below the skin’s surface, twice the depth of regular microneedling. This combination of AI and monopolar RF reduces discomfort while maximizing results. It can also be combined with targeted ultrasound to increase collagen and elastin production by almost 50% and hyaluronidase by 224%. Dr. Vu says, “AI microneedling tightens the skin on your entire face and neck. Usually, microneedling is very painful, and a lot of times patients cannot complete the session because of the pain. However, this one uses AI technology to give patients the precise frequency energy to provide optimal results, but without the pain. On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain is closer to a 2, 3 or 4 at most versus 8, 9 or 10.”
• RF + HIFES (High-Intensity Facial Electromagnetic Stimulation): RF for stimulating collagen and elastin production is used in combination with electromagnetic stimulation that selectively contracts facial muscles to sculpt, build structure, lift and tone the skin, restoring firmness and elasticity.
• PRP Therapy:  Platelet rich plasma (PRP) therapy uses a patient’s own plasma to isolate platelets that are rich in growth factors and stimulate cell growth, collagen and elastin production and re-vascularization of the skin. This provides a myriad of aesthetic benefits, including reducing discoloration and hyper-pigmentation, brightening uneven tone and texture to promote a healthy, radiant glow, minimizing pore size and scarring. In addition to skin radiance, PRP provides a plumping effect on sagging skin, improves elasticity, increases volume in hollow areas and helps eliminate puffy eyes and dark circles to rejuvenate tired skin, diminish fine lines and wrinkles and restore patients’ radiant, youthfulness.

Aesthetic Treatments for the Body:

• RF High-Intensity Focused Electromagnetic Energy: Advanced RF heating technology melts away fat while high-intensity focused electromagnetic energy stimulates muscle strength and growth. This allows for optimal fat burning while also building muscle without having to go to the gym.
• Accoustic Wave Therapy:  Accoustic wave therapy (AWT) is a newer technology being utilized in medicine in general as well as in medical aesthetics. According to Dr. Vu, “This is new technology that helps with muscular problems or disorders. By sending waves into your body, it is able to help with neuropathy from diabetes and other conditions that become more common with age like erectile dysfunction. ED is very common, with 50% of the men past the age of 40 suffering from it. This device is able to restore function after four to six sessions with no pain or side effects. So, we're trying to offer this kind of technology to help patients with that aspect of the aging process as well.”

Final Thoughts

When it comes to ageless aesthetics, a global approach to anti-aging that seeks to account for every biological factor that contributes to the aging process is truly the future of this industry and the concept of ageless aesthetics. Combining advances in restoring physical health and hormone levels with the revolutionary advances in AI technology and regenerative aesthetics treatments truly combats the aging process and signs of age in a way that is set to shape the future of medical aesthetics. Addressing patients’ physical health first leads to the health and appearance of their skin and body improving. Then when they receive aesthetic treatments, the body and cells are primed to respond, particularly when it comes to regenerative aesthetic treatments. “Everything in the body is connected. If you have better inner health, then our outer health is going to reflect that. People that are physically healthy, they look more vibrant and glowing. That, in turn, improves your mental health because if you're healthy physically, you feel better mentally. Add in aesthetics and you feel more attractive and confident, further improving your mental health. It is all connected.”

References:

1. Precedence Research. Anti-Aging Market. https://www.precedenceresearch.com/anti-aging-market#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20anti%2Daging%20market,7.9%25%20between%202023%20to%202032.

2. Hypothyroidism Facts and Statistics: What You Need to Know (verywellhealth.com)