These days, it’s rare to write about plastic surgery without mentioning fat. We’re either losing it (courtesy of GLP-1s), removing it (via liposuction, the top-ranking surgical procedure last year), reusing it (to plump and contour), or, not uncommonly, doing all three in succession—a sort of carefully orchestrated fat shuffle.
Now, plastic surgeons are experimenting with a first-of-its-kind body filler derived from—guess what—fat. Donated human fat, to be exact, which has been procured from cadavers and meticulously processed into a thick injectable called Alloclae. Donor tissue—which includes everything from skin and cartilage to ligaments and heart valves—is frequently used in all fields of medicine, including aesthetics, but for some patients, the idea of receiving “fat from a dead person is still a little macabre,” says Troy Pittman, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon with practices in Washington, DC, and New York City.
To secure the donor adipose tissue—aka fat—Tiger Aesthetics, the makers of Alloclae, partners with recovery agencies who “work closely with healthcare providers and family members of donors to review the scope of the deceased individual’s donation,” says a representative for Tiger. Some of you may be morally opposed to (or just totally turned by) the idea of using human parts for cosmetic purposes and will choose to avoid Alloclae just as you might forgo Botox (which contains albumin, a protein in human blood) or exosomes (which are commonly sourced from human cells). But this donated fat can also be considered “a natural alternative [to synthetic fillers and implants],” says Dr. Pittman, explaining that the donor tissues are really acting as a scaffolding for your own fat to grow into. “Once your body incorporates the graft, the fat is going to be more yours than the donor’s.”
This isn’t the first time Allure has reported on Alloclae. Back in January, before the product officially launched, I included it in a story about the fat-stimulating shot Renuva. Alloclae isn’t a Renuva knockoff, however. It falls into a separate category all its own. What makes it unique and “potentially groundbreaking,” says Darren Smith, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City, is the inclusion of intact, nonliving donor fat cells (and their naturally occurring growth factors), which impart instant volume. Supporting the fat cells in the formula is a proprietary stew of extracellular matrix proteins. These collagens, elastins, and glycoproteins help the donor cells integrate into the body’s own tissue while encouraging innate fat cells and blood vessels to bloom in the area. Renuva, if you recall, is fat cell-free and composed solely of fat-adjacent proteins, which recruit the body’s own fat cells over time.