In a book published at the end of January, a journalist investigates the mysterious physical transformation of the Bogdanoff brothers.
“We have become uncertain characters”, launched the Bogdanoff brothers on television in 2002. Rare disease or abuse of cosmetic surgery? For twenty years, their metamorphosis has never ceased to fascinate the crowds. So much so that at the end of January, journalist Maud Guillaumin published The Bogdanoff Mystery (Archipel edition)in which she investigates the amazing physical evolution of the famous twins.
A rare hormonal disorder
While many people argued that the Bogdanoff brothers are suffering acromegaly, a rare hormonal disorder caused by a benign tumor of the pituitary gland (endocrine gland that causes hypersecretion of growth hormone) responsible for an abnormal increase in the size of the feet, hands and facial deformity, it is nothing. In The Bogdanoff MysteryDoctor Christophe de Jaeger, a relative of the twins interviewed by the author, bluntly denies this information.
Especially since this disease most often occurs between the ages of 30 and 40, while the famous twins, who are now 69, began their metamorphosis around the age of fifty. So much the better for them, we can therefore say to ourselves, acromegaly being a very dangerous disease, beyond the physical inconvenience it causes.
“A very complicated relationship with the idea of aging”
Indeed, the hormonal load puts the body to the test, greatly tiring the patient. Other possible side effects: hypertension, diabetes, arthritis or even heart failure. Thus, without proper treatment, life expectancy after diagnosis is about a decade.
“I never tried to find out what it was. (…) they are looking for a form of eternal youth. And since it is impossible to rejuvenate without changing, their metamorphosis is straightforward […] People prefer to think of an illness than a deliberate decision. But that’s wrong!”, explains publisher Jean-Paul Enthoven, another close friend of the Bogdanoffs to Maud Guillaumin. And their sister adds: they “obviously have a very complicated relationship with the idea to grow old, with death.”
Thus, although Igor and Grichka themselves like to speak of “experiments” to evoke their progressive physical transformations, cosmetic surgery remains the most plausible explanation. And today they would be far from being the only ones to use it in France. Indeed, between 2015 and 2016, the number of operations jumped by +6%, placing France in tenth position worldwide, still far from the United States, Brazil, Japan or China, according to the ranking. according to the classification of ISAPS (International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery).
Over 6% of cosmetic surgery operations in France between 2015 and 2016
Thus, in 2016, there were 517,000 cosmetic surgery procedures in the country, the equivalent of 1,416 operations per day. To date, the most popular operation remains liposuction, followed by breast augmentation and blepharoplasty (to correct problems with droopy eyelids as you age). Then come the abdominoplasty for the chocolate bar effect and then the rhinoplasty, which consists of redoing the nose.
But if plastic surgery continues to grow in France, doctors claim to be looking for the most natural result possible. At an international congress in Lyon last June, specialists defended the concept of the “French Touch” even in cosmetic surgery. “When a facelift is seen, it is that it has failed,” assured Dr. Michel Rouif, secretary general of SOFCEP (French Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons) at the Parisian.
Another hobby of French cosmetic surgeons: aesthetic regenerative medicine, or “the medicine of tomorrow”, according to Dr. Bérengère Chignon-Sicard. This technique, which consists of regenerating tissues rather than replacing them, is notably possible thanks to the reinjection of adipose tissue containing stem cells. An entire program…
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