Could a dental brace prove to be the next big thing in anti-ageing?
can make people look up to 20 years younger, just by wearing it for
a few minutes a day.
Billed as an alternative to anti-ageing creams and even cosmetic surgery, the £2,500 (€3,600) Oralift brace is said to train facial muscles around the mouth to tighten up, preventing the sagging affect that is a part of the natural ageing process.
Originally dentist Dr Nick Mohindra fitted the silicone-based braces to patients who were suffering from orthodontic problems, realising quite by accident that the brace also helped patients to achieve a younger looking face.
Dr Mohindra points to the fact that the brace helps reverse what cosmetic surgeons refer to as the facial triangle. When young this triangle points downwards, ending in a point at the chin. However the ageing process means that this triangle is reversed by the formation of jowls.
The brace is said to work by re-training the 'free way space', which is the gap between the upper and lower teeth. When a patient wears the brace it retrains the muscles around the free way space by widening the gap.
The muscles are said to adapt to this new position, forcing them to be more taught and ultimately tightening up the skin across a wide area of the face.
The brace can either be warn at night or during the day, and when the individual is eating.
The results? Dr Mohindra claims that the procedure has been scientifically proven to knock between five and 20 years off the appearance of 80 per cent of patients.
The discovery has led to a practice being set up in Dubai, which is now serving a variety of patients from around the world.
But dental professionals are not convinced about the process. A spokesman for the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry told the BBC that it was possible that increasing the free way space could improve muscle tone and appearance, but said that there was also the possibility of repercussions.
He said that the procdure could have possible side affects on the speech as well as putting undue strain on the facial muscles which could lead to headaches.
