Starting Botox
Allure – August 2006
Starting Botox in one’s mid-20s may prevent the forehead furrows associated with aging. A comparison of 38-year-old twins – one who had Botox shots in her forehead three times a year for 13 years and the other who had only two treatments during the same time period – showed that the treated twin had no vertical frown lines in her forehead at rest, while not frowning, three months after her last treatment. In photographs of her sister, the forehead was clearly indented with frown lines, “the result of repeated muscle contractions” observed William J. Binder, M.D. associate clinical professor of head and neck surgery at UCLA. He presented the report at a recent American Academy of Dermatology meeting. However, Alan Gold, associate professor of surgery at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, questions whether preventive treatments are worth the time and expense, advising patients to wait until forehead lines are first apparent when not frowning. “At that point,” he adds, “the visible changes are still reversible.”
