CELLULITE
Cellulite is a skin condition that gives the appearance of small bumps and ripples under the skin. The bumps are caused by the underlying fat cells growing too large and stretching the natural fiber compartments that hold the skin to the underlying layers of tissues.
“Cellulite” is ordinary fat, but ordinary fat that affects the appearance of the skin. Strands of fibrous collagen tissue connect the skin to the subcutaneous layers and also separate compartments that contain fat cells. When fat cells increase in size, these compartments bulge and produce a rippled appearance of the skin.
Women tend to have cellulite more often than men because they have a vertical pattern of collagen in the underlying layer that holds the fat cells, and when the fat cells become very large, they bulge out of the chambers and appear as cellulite. In men, the pattern of collagen is tighter, in a diagonal pattern, and they have thicker skin, so there is less bulging of the individual fat cells. Another factor in cellulite is high levels of estrogen, since this hormone has a direct effect on the holding capacity of fat cells through the increase of...