Skin Deep: Plastic Surgeon Tips To Be Beautiful Inside And Out

Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

- Well. Hello everybody. Welcome to another really great session reversing heart disease naturally summit you really, really want to lockdown. Not move for the next 30 40 minutes and pay attention because we got not just anybody one. It's a good friend. It's a local friend in Detroit and both a local national international expert and star as well. Talk about. So without further ado Dr. Tony Youn. Thank you for being here. - Hey, great to see you Joel. - We've had the pleasure of about a decade of friendship and collegiality.

You've been called a number of wonderful titles. But America's healthy plastic surgeon. You're a board certified plastic surgeon. Not everybody in your field can say that with the accolades and training you have and you see patients and you're making them well. Right. - I do my best. Yeah. So in full time private practice. - Yeah. You're in your office and seeing patients today in your scrubs. Tell us a little bit, you know, your journey and then, you know, we'll talk about your distinction as being, you know, probably the most popular doctor on social media.

I think that may actually be. Now that Dr. Oz is a politician will exclude him, but you know, kind of your journey to get. You've been in practice. I would estimate 15 years, maybe a little longer and I'm I'm not giving you credit. But how did you get there? Where did you go to school and... - Yeah thank you. Yeah. So I went through four years of medical school and then I did three years of general surgery residency training. Like a lot of plastic surgeons and then I did two years of plastic surgery residency back now.

They required three years back when I went through, which was a long time ago they required to and then I did a year of a aesthetic plastic surgery fellowship with a big name plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. So I spent a year out there and then because my wife's parents live in the Metro Detroit area, moved back to Detroit in 2004,

Dr. Tony Youn's Training and Career Path 2:00

started a private practice then. And I've been here in private practice since then. And so it's been very, very interesting journey. I went through a period, I was doing a lot of national TV appearances like on the Rachel Ray show, Dr. Oz. doctors and all that. And then a couple of years ago I started focusing more on social media, especially after the pandemic hit. And I found myself in an empty office with no employees uh and nowhere no employees around patients around and a ton of time on my hands.

And so I started creating content that I thought was kind of fun and informative and next thing, you know, it's like crazy number of followers. So it's definitely been a fun journey. - Well just tell us, I mean with humility as you are humble, but if I'm right about eight million followers on Tiktok and four million on Youtube and I see you most on Instagram because I hang around there a million on Instagram. I mean these are insane. I mean you're reaching so many people and it's obviously medical content, but you're a pretty funny guy.

I mean funny in a good way, funny and a great way to present a message when you can actually catch people's attention. I mean, were you known as the funny kid growing up? - Not really. And you know what? It started with a good friend of both of ours, a common friend, JJ Virgin, I was working with her for a while and she's been a bit of a mentor for me. And at one point she said, you know what, you should just kind of let loose and show your personality and joke a little more. And honestly what happened Joel is when the pandemic hit and I told my employees, I said, look, I've got 10 employees. I said, I don't know when we're gonna open back up, but I will pay you for as long as I can. And when I started looking at my bank account, the biggest checks I got were from google and I thought geez, I've got all this time in the world, I have no patience because we were forced to close.

And so I just started paying content mainly because I wanted to do something to help people honestly like, you know, you and I, we're used to seeing patients every day and trying to, you know, help them improve their lives, make them healthier and advocate for them. But when you can't see them anymore. You still, I'm sure like I did have this desire to somehow help people. And so for me I did all I, all I thought I could think of is, hey, let me create stuff that even if I take them out of the crazy, scary time that it was back then for 30 seconds or five minutes or 10 minutes, that's a privilege.

And then all of a sudden I started find that, jeez, I'm taking like a million people through five minutes of making them laugh and feel like they forgot kind of the misery of that time. And uh, and it really has been very rewarding for me because to be able to help so many people, it was just a privilege. - Yeah. And you know, watching your material, it's such a great balance between real content. You're an authentic doctor of high quality and a little bit of humor. And then, you know, when you got people like the Kardashians are so popular and you can comment on a whole range of people like that. I mean, it's, it's a marvelous thing you're doing. Some people may question,

Social Media Growth and Pandemic Content Creation 5:00

I'm just gonna grab the screen for a minute. You know why at a reversing heart disease naturally summit, are we having America's holistic plastic surgeon and social media superstar, literally, I spent 10 seconds on National Library of Medicine, let me just tell two articles. One is called skin aging Parameters. A window to the heart. This isn't a cardiology journal in 2018 clinical cardiology. They took 100 people half that had very advanced heart disease that half that didn't and they did a aging of the skin score.

And just to cut through it. The higher your aging score, wrinkles, pigmentation, Siberia, keratosis, the higher was your risk of having internal heart disease. That there was a coral and those that looked younger for age had less heart disease. Not completely surprising because you and I are both trained and integrated functional medicine approach is and we know that the body is a network and I talk a lot about wrinkles of the heart. You can't see them, but they're there. It's just easier to see wrinkles on the outside and just one other. This is just a little bit more recent, February 2021 journal clinical aesthetic dermatology.

Pretty much the same thing. 100 people half that had hospitalized with heart disease, half that were not known to have heart disease. And it was a skin aging score. And the skin aging score over eight was pretty predictive for internal heart disease. You know, I talk a lot about a diagonal earlobe crease premature balding, premature graying. These are all in cardiology literature and science are rarely used. So tell us about that process. I mean you you are the world expert on aging of the skin and how does it happen?

I mean, what are some common lifestyle or habit or dietary or even genetic factors that give you an accelerated aging and just that sad look to your face. - Yeah. So there are a number of different causes of skin aging that you can definitely focus on. And the first one is inflammation, you know, and so we know that there's, you know, acute inflammation in some cases can actually be really good for your body. So let's say you get a cut on your skin, there's inflammation around it to help heal it for us.

We'll do let's say a laser treatment. So you get acute inflammation in your skin and it can lead to a more youthful appearance afterwards. But chronic inflammation is a huge age of the skin. Another age of the skin is oxidation and free radicals and that's something I'm happy to talk with you about. But the whole oxidative process and free radicals and the benefits of antioxidants, huge things when you're talking about eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Another thing is autophagy and happy to chat about that as well. A reduction autophagy as we get older, that also is one of the big ages of the skin and probably one of the ones that people don't really focus on hardly at all. So a number of different ways that the skin ages. And then the final thing is collagen is loss of collagen. So as we get older that collagen get thinner, we asked me about 1% every year. And so thinner collagen as I'm sure you see in some of your patients where they go, jeez you know, I've got bruises everywhere, My skin is so thin it tears. So trying to get that collagen thicker, Super, super important. So that's kind of what I usually will focus on is kind of those four things. It's collagen, its oxidation, it's inflammation and it's a reduction in autophagy.

- Some of those four foundations. And thank you, you know for that excellent response. May have genetic input but sounds like a lot of lifestyle. I mean when you see somebody with aging coming to you for some work, I mean, how about smoking and skin health? What's your observation of the science you learned? - Yeah. So smoking, there's a number of things that it can do. I mean when you look at kind of these four things I mentioned with smoking, you can be dealing with free radicals, you know, and free radicals we know being created by our

Why Skin Aging Matters for Heart Health 9:00

own body's natural metabolism, but also by a lot of these external causes anything from the foods that you eat. So eating a lot of kind of processed foods that can increase the free radical attacks basically on your body. Put you in a state of oxidative stress where essentially there's so many free radicals attacking your body, your body cannot deal with it. And so you want to infuse it with antioxidants to fight those off. There are other causes pollution. You mentioned smoking is basically one of those where once again you get that free radical formation, there other things that are kind of more minor, you know, a lot of people we find that when they're smoking a lot, it does tend to dehydrate their skin. I can't tell you the exact mechanism of it.

It could be multifactorial, but that's something we see all the time, you know, and and people who are lifetime smokers, I'm sure you see they come in your office and you can tell the moment you see them the moment they walk in the office, if they're a smoker, you know, you can tell just by the quality of their skin. - Yeah, I've seen pictures of some twin studies where one twin smokes and one twin doesn't and its facial appearance and you know, it's impossible not to recognize accelerated aging from smoking. How about sleep in that algorithm of, you know, causes of accelerated aging, the skin. Yeah, that's something that really, - I don't know that I would put it in one of those four, but it's so definitely important and we're learning the importance of the circadian rhythm.

It's almost like right now circadian rhythms and the importance of having a kind of definite sleep wake cycle and its impacts on your health. I feel like it's almost like the microbiome was, let's say 10 or 12 years ago, where the only people really talking about that are people who are more on the holistic side, who are looking past the studies that have, that have been completed already and they're looking at what's kind of the next thing. So, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you mentioned the microbiome and traditional doctors with poo poo and say, oh, you know, they don't pay attention to it at all.

Now, everybody's paying attention to it and I think with sleep and especially with circadian rhythms when you eat, you know, do you eat before you go to bed? How that may impact the quality of your sleep, how that may impact the health of your internal organs, like your liver. That I think is something that's really on the cutting edge is a plastic surgeon. It's not my field, so I'm not gonna tell you, I'm an expert at it, but I do think that over the next 5 to 10 years, we're gonna learn a lot more about it. - So, again, inflammation, oxidative stress. You mentioned to autophagy collagen, low fruit, low fruit and vegetable intake. You talk about college and health.

Let's go to autophagy for a minute. We will learn some about fasting during the summit and the role of fasting and heart disease, but how can fasting improve skin skin age, because we do know that fasting may trigger this self renewal self healing that scientists call. - Yeah, so the autophagy, as you mentioned earlier, and I'm sure you've covered here before this self eating intracellular, basically recycling all of that impacts overall longevity. And that does impact your skin health. Now, if all you do is you intermittent fast and you don't, let's say take do some of the other things that will tell talk about on this episode here, you know, you may live longer but you may not look quite as good as if you took care of your skin with the right products too. But the idea is a more general idea.

It's like if you intermittent fast if you you know, promote the process of autopsy, you are promoting longevity. Are you having a direct influence on let's say this, the wrinkles of your face, There haven't been any studies that I know of that have specifically focused on that, but it does make sense because you've got longevity. That being said, you and I know a lot of the scientists who are into this longevity and the fasting and they're not necessarily the let's just say the smoothest skinned people in the world. So I do think it is multifactorial.

I think that you have to combine, you know, like you mentioned earlier,

Main Causes of Skin Aging 13:00

an antioxidant rich diet with the intermittent fasting but you also have to focus on collagen degradation. Okay. And that's the other thing that you can help with nutritional supplements with the right skin products on your skin and even skin treatments. - Let's talk about that. You're the specialist. What's a good routine for healthy skin that listeners can grab onto right now? - So, you know, it's a fallacy that you have to do like a 10 step skincare routine to to get good looking skin. You really only have to take about two minutes every day. And if you do that, you're gonna be far ahead of most people. So the first thing you wanna do is every morning you want to cleanse your skin, okay? The cleanser that you find makes your skin nice and clean. So if you've got oily skin often you wanna look for a more foaming type of a cleanser that's gonna help with that oil in general.

If you've got drier skin than a more milky or hydrating cleanser is going to be more helpful after you cleanse your skin, you want to play an antioxidant serum, usually like a vitamin C. And here's a tip. If you combine vitamin C and vitamin E. They appear to be synergistic when you use them as an antioxidant, so you can get even better effects by by combining the two than if you do them separately. And then the third thing I always recommend is to apply a sunscreen, ideally an SPF at least 30. That's all you have to do, technically in the morning, you cleanse you apply an antacid and then you do a sunscreen in the evening. So, so important you want to cleanse and a lot of people are finding that they do a double cleanse and that gives them their best results.

So double cleanse being, you know, you and I we don't wear makeup during the day, but a lot of women do. And some men and using a first cleanser, like an oil based cleanser to help remove the makeup or the debris basically from your skin to start out with. And then the cleanser that you probably used in the morning. You follow that up with an anti aging cream. The one I usually recommend is a retinol or retinoid prescription strength is called retinoid or retin A non prescription is a retinol. This is gonna be the most important part anti aging part of your skincare routine because these retinoids are scientifically proven to help reduce fine lines to thicken the dermis, increase the collagen of the skin. And even to reverse potentially early pre skin cancers.

So if I pick one anti aging cream to use, it would be a retinoid either over the counter retinol or prescription strength retinol, retin. A other than that a couple of times a week, I would recommend exfoliating your skin either with a nice scrub or with a chemical exfoliant and that's all you do. You're way ahead of everybody else. - And although you might be humble. Again, I'm pretty sure. Well at the end of this conversation, go over to discuss where to find you on the web. But I know you have a high quality line of products and some of the products you mentioned would be available. That's sort of true. - Yeah.

So I have a line called Youn Beauty. It's made with natural organic ingredients. There's a lot of products out there though. If you just stick with this regimen and you're choosing with the product you put on your skin, you should hopefully see nice changes in it whether you use mine or somebody else's. - Okay. I said you're humble. You brought up vitamin C. And just before we skip on over to some more health care tips from America's holistic plastic surgeon. I mean, you had the the bravery to have me on your podcast and we talked a bit about college information, of course, lots of people are going to animal based powders and smoothies, but the reality is we have to break all that down into pretty simple components before we absorb it. We don't absorb college and intact and in fact, the biochemistry of making college in the body is a lot of vitamin C.

And a lot of licensing. So you mentioned you vitamin C based skin products, you can actually absorb vitamin C into the skin. Does that, in some sense, help college information uh for those that are more in the plant based world? - Yeah, I don't know it's so much, I mean it's definitely helpful because you know, as you mentioned, it's a co factor. It's it's absolutely necessary in the

Skincare Routine and Vitamin C Benefits 17:00

production of collagen and we know that a lack of vitamin C in the diet eventually results in scurvy. It really, you know, there's two reasons why vitamin C is great and one of it, one of them and I think the most important part honestly is antioxidant factor of it is fighting the free radicals and the oxidation. The other part of obviously being so important for the production of collagen. I think when you're looking at collagen, yeah, there are a lot of people who are taking collagen powders nowadays but really it comes, it does come down to protein.

You know, collagen is a protein, it's a complex protein. And so you know, if your plant based and no question, there's a lot of great sources of protein that you can add to your diet. You know, from nuts to seeds to you know, green leafy vegetables but really focus making sure you get sufficient protein because that is going to then become those building blocks of the collagen of your skin. - What are some new treatments to holistically reverse skin aging you're using in your clinic, - there's a lot of really exciting things um you know, regenerative medicine is something that's a super hot topic now in cosmetic medicine and it's essentially using your body's own processes to rejuvenate itself.

One of the like one of the most popular treatments right now now is Micro Needling and that's essentially making tiny little pokes into the skin. You can combine that with a number of different things. If you're on a budget, you can just do a Micro Needling session and then a lot of places will apply like a topical plant based growth factor to your skin and that way not only do you get the benefit of that initial trauma or that acute inflammation that I mentioned earlier, but by applying a growth factor serum on top of your skin.

After that treatment, it can can seep into those tiny little holes created by the Micro Needling and can help rejuvenate your skin from the inside out. If you want to take that a step further, you can add PRP, platelet rich plasma. So, for your listeners and viewers who haven't heard of that, basically, you draw some blood, we spin it down, remove the platelets which are chock full of growth factors and then we apply that growth factor platelet rich plasma onto the surface of the skin and that will once again seep into those tiny little puncture holes made by the Micro Needling to rejuvenate your skin from the inside out. The third way to do it.

If you're looking for more tightening is something called radio frequency Micro Needling, where you make those tiny little holes in the skin and at the base of that tiny little needle that goes in it emits radio frequency energy that can create heat. And if you get the, the heat to a certain temperature, we believe, like 42 degrees Celsius at the surface of the skin. It can create that, that collagen cause that collagen to actually tighten up and give you tighter skin afterwards. The great thing about these treatments is that they're not that expensive compared to, let's say, a full face laser treatments or God forbid surgery, but they can get some really, really nice changes.

And what you're doing is you're stimulating that collagen once again to get thicker. - I kind of feel like a Tiktok's coming for the needlephobic cardiologist visits, America, holistic plastic surgeon and goes through micro needling. Perhaps we can get some fake blood and really make that into Halloween horror. Tiktok at some point. We'll talk about that off camera. I'm approaching my mid sixties and there's always that one little spot, no matter how much gym time or healthy food you're eating one little bulge, one little spot on the body that you'd rather contour down to uh your youthful prior appearance. What are some treatments, new treatments for body contouring? Noninvasive that are used at your clinic.

- So there are two big kind of categories right now that are really, really popular, really hot, basically. A lot of people are doing the first thing is non invasive fat reduction probably about 15 years ago, I went on Rachel Ray show. And I said the Holy Grail of plastic surgery is to get rid of fat without diet exercise needles or surgery. And at the time we didn't have anything like that. We just had liposuction or diet exercise, which obviously is always the best way to go. But even if you are at, even if you are super healthy, you're eating a great diet,

Collagen, Autophagy, and Fasting 21:00

you're really active, you're exercising. We all have potentially certain areas that we inherit a stubborn fat, you know, fat that no matter what you do just doesn't go away. And in that situation there are treatments now that can basically melt that fat away non invasively. The one I have in my office is called sculpture. It's a laser that will heat the fat up to a certain temperature where those fat cells will actually die and your body will then basically get rid of it. Basically a pee it out. The other category that is super popular right now are the muscle enhancing treatments. And so there are treatments now that will use electromagnetic energy to stimulate your muscles to contract anywhere from 20 to 30,000 times over a half hour session. So it's like doing 20,000 crunches in a half hour. And if you do a series of these treatments, they can increase the thickness of your muscle and even reduce fat.

So a lot of people are doing that for the abs That they've got. You know, I've got like decent definition, I want to give better definition. It works really well for that. And you can also do it on to the buttocks as a way to kind of lift and make the bucks a bit perkier combining the fat reduction with the muscle stimulation is another thing that people are doing now as well. I can be over to your office in about 25 minutes after this interview. - Perhaps we can get that sculpture thing up and warmed up.

- These are definitely things that when we get in the office, everybody wants to try it out right away. - Yeah. I will reveal I've tried the 25,000 crunch approach to muscle augmentation. I actually found it very enjoyable. It's intense. It's a belt around your belly in a office like your first class office. You know, it's completely non invasive and I only dabbled in it because I read the science. It was totally intrigued. - It's interesting. Yeah. Because when it first came out, Joel, I was like you know I go for a workout and I'm sore afterwards and it's not like you see the results for that much longer you have to keep it up.

So I didn't get these devices that device until they had six month study that showed results persisting after six months after the last treatment. And once I saw that I said okay, you know patients are going to pay this type of money if the results last three weeks. But when you're talking six months, maybe more. Okay, let's try this now. - Warning warning. Talk to your medical team and you know, these things don't work if you don't also incorporate the rest of your lifestyle program from diet to sleep to fitness distress management.

But you know, it's great to be aware that there's progress and advances. So a lot of this summit on reversing heart disease naturally talks about nutrition and we have, you know, some of the big ones Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Fuhrman, excuse me, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. David Katz, you know, all these people talk a little bit as a, you know, you talk to your patients. What is it about fast food, processed foods? Sugary drinks from sodas to energy drinks.

Regenerative Skin Treatments and Body Contouring 24:00

What is it about them that is so skin damaging. And what is it about fruits and vegetables that are just so joyful. - Yeah, I mean, you know, the first thing is we have to keep in mind is that the big age of the skin is sugar and sugar ages the skin in two main ways. The first way is vacation. And so essentially the sugar molecules combined to the collagen and elastin in your skin collagen makes about 80% of your skin. You lasted about 20% but that sugar will bind to the collagen. That's a process called vacation. And cause that collagen to actually become more kinked and that can prematurely age the skin the second way that it ages the skin is that chronic sugar spikes by, let's say, eating, you know, dessert type foods, you know, high sugar content foods, high fructose, corn syrup, things like that. That can cause insulin spikes and chronic insulin spikes can create chronic inflammation. Like I mentioned earlier, acute inflammation can be really good. You get acute inflammation if you do a micro needling treatment is that chronic inflammation over time, that can definitely degrade the skin and increase wrinkles.

And there are actually studies that show that people who have have a higher intake of vitamin C. This is intake not necessarily putting on your skin have actually fewer wrinkles than people who have lower intakes of vitamin C. And you even look at their studies that show that if you have high intakes of saturated fats, high intakes of margarine butter, that you have more wrinkles than people who don't, there aren't, you know, there's gonna be more, I think coming out that the science isn't as robust as I would love for it to be. But there are definitely conclusions that can be made in the literature regarding the quality of the food that you eat and the quality of your skin and all of it always points to eating the rainbow of fruits and vegetables is going to be the best thing that you can do for your skin.

I'm so glad you brought up. And probably some listeners, - I just want to say it again. It's called glide cation and products and that's not a word everybody's heard or advanced delegation and products A. G. It's kind of funny. The acronym changes advanced application and products with the plural ages, but it's a connection between diet and even the way we prepare foods. Grilling red meat is a classic trigger to like hating your blood vessels. My topic like eating the skin, which is just a fancy word for sugar coating and aging and we can control, we can steam, we can sauté, we can low heat, we can eat raw salads and fruits and vegetables and we can avoid sugar add added to the diet.

That's not fruit, that's added sugars like you mentioned and it's really a profound area of science and many people feel it's almost the central core between a diet high in advanced location and products and inflammation, to heart disease, to cancer, to brain disease, to advanced skin aging. So thanks for bringing that up. I don't think we've actually talked about that in other interviews and it's great that it's a plastic surgeon that appreciates the dietary route. I mean you look wonderful. You make it to the gym or home gym most days. - Yeah.

My wife got us actually got my wife a peloton, you know, during all of this kind of stuff going on. And so it's, I've been really fortunate that I'm able to work out at home quite often and you know how it's like, you know, you get back late. I've got kids were in high school and I really want to try to be home as much as I can. So it's been really helpful. But I think, you know, like I said earlier, it really is a combination. It's having a nutritious healthy diet filled with antioxidants, you know, with taking good care of your skin. And there are treatments that I do on my skin as well. But you don't have to do these expensive in office things still have great looking skin. It's just doing those steps that I mentioned earlier. - All right, well it's working wonderfully for you. It's always a great bit of promotion when you actually, I can say as a hard doctor, I am fortunately extremely hard healthy and I've done the testing, you know, in a different field, I know you have a good heart but you're

Diet, Sugar, and Advanced Glycation 28:00

looking young and so keep it up. - I did get my calcium score like you told me to and it has been zero. So I've been happy with that too. - I am not surprised you have a calcium score zero skin. Now that's a term nobody else's, they're probably our skin aging scores and it's great there. You know, as I say, this outside inside connection is the reason I wanted to talk to you because the pathway to health and maybe we can't yet micro needle the heart arteries and I'm not sure we want to develop it.

That's a specialty that you have. And many people appreciate learning about it or hearing about it again. But we can clearly emphasize that the that the body responds to changes in diet, sleep, fitness, stress management, being aware of biotoxins, being aware of plastics and endocrine disrupters, things that will age the skin to that we've talked about. - And we do know too that people who are image conscious and they really care about their appearance that actually is correlated with longevity. You know, and I'm sure it may not be a direct relation. There's probably multifactorial, a lot of factors involved. But there are some studies that looked at people who are very image conscious. You know, they care about how their skin once and they try to take care of their skin.

They seem to live longer than people who don't. And I'm sure there are a lot of reasons behind that. But there that definitely has been done and has been shown. - Yeah, I don't know if you know this. But according to I think the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest living woman in the world passed away was Jean Clement documented to be 122 years old and she's very famous for a quote "I have only one wrinkle on my body and I sit on it." And she was uh just known to be very mindful of her appearance and maintain great cognitive skills and certainly a sense of humor until the very end. So maybe that's a good place to shut it down the skin, heart and longevity connection. So thank you so much people that want to find

Longevity, Appearance, and Closing Remarks 30:00

you tell your social media locations and then of course your clinic website. - So you can find me at Dr. Youn or Tony Youn, MD on all the different social media channels. My website is dryoun.com and my skincare line is YounBeauty.com and thank you so much for having me. You know, it really is an honor to be with you And such high esteemed colleagues love talk talking about the skin and I'm really excited to hear what you and your colleagues talked about regarding the diet because it's such a great, great information put out there and you follow that and add a little bit of skin care and there you go. You're all set.

- Well, thank you for that. Thanks for taking out the time go do good things with patients in your clinic, appreciate it. - Thank you