Talking to… DR REZA MIA

In this issue of Professional Beauty, we put the spotlight on one of South Africa’s leading aesthetic medicine practitioners, Dr Reza Mia of Anti-Aging Art in Houghton, Johannesburg. Joanna Sterkowicz chats to him about industry issues and his personal journey in aesthetics

You have said that you think regenerative medicine is the future of aesthetics – please elaborate.

It is something that will allow us to use patients’ own cells to produce desirable outcomes i.e. to get them to look healthy, happy and youthful without having them look like they have been worked on. This means less of a reliance on foreign products and more dependence on the stimulation of their own cells in desirable ways. For example, we are looking at ways to enhance melanocyte expression in hair to get rid of grey hairs, or to stimulate collagen and elastin in the skin or muscle mass. These are all things that we hope to bring to the world through regenerative medical treatments with the end goal being to create organs through 3D printing and engineering.

What is your involvement in the move to legalise in South Africa the use of human stem cells harvested from patients’ own bodies?

Stem cell use is illegal in our country and punishable by 10 years in prison. The reason for this is that laws were designed to protect fetuses from being aborted in order to harvest stem cells from them. But, stem cells can now be obtained from patients’ own cells, or from umbilical cord blood, and therefore these laws are no longer relevant. We have started an NPO (Non-Profit Organisation) to fund stem cell research, because research under ethically approved studies is allowed and this will, in turn, give us the opportunity to further our stem cell goals. Additionally, we would also look to address the Department of Health in the appropriate forum in order to get them to revise the law to allow us to use stem cells, but obviously in a regulated manner. However, just as in any other medical treatment, the use of stem cells can carry risks.

“ROBOTICS WILL ALLOW us to DIRECT INJECTABLES. Of course, these will have to be ALTERED AND APPROVED by AESTHETICIANS OR AESTHETIC DOCTORS who, again, have an UNDERSTANDING OF BEAUTY, but a robot may INJECT MORE RELIABLY, with GREATER ACCURACY and consistency. ”

Please talk about the use of robotics in treatments.

Robots may be equipped with special censors to enable us to detect things such as underlying structures like blood vessels, making them safer to use than hand injecting. At the same time, robotics will allow us to direct injectables. Of course, these will have to be altered and approved by aestheticians or aesthetic doctors who, again, have an understanding of beauty, but a robot may inject more reliably, with greater accuracy and consistency. A robot can inject for many hours without rest. They can do things like numbing, cleaning, microneedling, actual injecting and a single practitioner will be able to oversee a number of robots. In such a way, they will be able to see many more patients per hour. Consequently, it is likely that the cost of aesthetics will drop and allow a greater proportion of the population access to aesthetics medicine without looking for ways to get ‘budget botulinum toxin’. Thus patients will have great results for less money and less risk.

What have been some of the biggest technological changes in aesthetic treatments and equipment over the past few years?

Aesthetics went through a phase of improvements and new products but then in recent years, it became a field where there were many copycat products and cheaper dermal fillers trying to come in without any unique selling points. Consequently, this has caused a little bit of a stagnation. However, there are new products being launched that offer enhanced results and safety. I think we will see a lot in the coming years in the form of robotics and AI, which will reinvigorate and completely alter the aesthetic landscape.

Since you started out in aesthetics, have you noticed any changes in this sector?

Yes, I have seen it grow quite substantially. I have also noticed that many new people have come in as service providers. The thing is that not everybody who is allowed to inject should be injecting because it takes a lot of talent, skill and artistic ability to produce beautiful aesthetic results. I think this is an important element that gets missed and it doesn’t get enough focus during training. So it is important for somebody who wants to do aesthetics to make sure they focus on improving their own aesthetic eye and artistic ability.

Is it fair to say that many doctors are now wanting to get onto the aesthetics bandwagon because they see it’s a booming industry?

I think many people do want to get into aesthetics. The thing we have to remember is that aesthetics is a general practitioner treatment and specialists should only be doing what is in their medical scope of practice. For example, a psychiatrist cannot work as a surgeon, and a surgeon cannot work as a gynaecologist, but a general practitioner can work in most fields as long as they are trained sufficiently. I think there will come a time when there will be more regulations around who can and who cannot perform aesthetic treatments. It should not be seen as a part-time job for someone with a medical background.

Would you say the aesthetics sector is becoming over-subscribed in terms of the high number of practitioners?

We went through a phase where there were many people coming into the field as a means of bringing in additional income to their practices. But, as the consumer base and the patients become more sophisticated and discerning, they are themselves selecting practitioners based on expertise, results and artistic ability.

“I think there WILL COME A TIME when there will be MORE REGULATIONS around who can and who cannot PERFORM AESTHETIC TREATMENTS. It should NOT BE SEEN as a PART-TIME JOB for someone with a MEDICAL BACKGROUND. ”

On a personal level, once you had qualified as a doctor, what made you want to get into aesthetics?

The truth is that once I had finished my internship and community service, I wasn’t sure of what to do with my future and so I started studying and working in business. I did an MBA and worked at my Dad’s company, which was a diverse business but also primarily property. Then, I then started importing Dr Robert Rey’s skincare products and one of the products was a botulinum toxin cream, which did surprisingly have an impact on skin that was thinner, but not on skin that was thicker. This led to people asking me to do their botulinum toxin injections for them, so I went back into medical practice and started doing these injections for these people. They kept coming back and they brought their family members and their friends and so it became quite a busy practice. I decided that this was guiding me back to the medical field and so I made a full time career out of it.

You have emphasised the importance of engaging both sides of the brain when performing aesthetic treatments, as in balancing the artistry with the science. Please elaborate.

Our motto at the practice is ‘Art meets Science’. So, what that means is that we need to marry the scientific advancements that we see in products and techniques with the artistic side of our brains, which allows us to create beauty through our efforts. It is not a simple thing where you can take filler, measure the amount and inject it in a certain spot and create beauty – that makes as much sense as trying to do the same by chipping away one centimetre of stone of a sculpture and hoping it will result in a beautiful sculpture.

Please talk about public misconceptions regarding aesthetic treatments.

The media tends to focus on the side-effects from treatments because of the shock value. We do make sure that we use methods of injection and treatment protocols that minimise the risk by using small amounts of dermal fillers and very low volumes that are injected in the right direction. The risk is never zero but if we follow these rules it does lower the chance of risks. It is also important to know how to deal with these unfortunate side-effects if they do occur, but if people knew what the real risks were of having these side-effects, they wouldn’t worry about them as much because there is a very low probability of them happening. This is of course provided that you are in the hands of a trained and experienced injector.

Into what age group does the majority of your clientele fall?

We have patients across the age range, from teenagers to patients in their eighties, but it does tend to follow the normal distribution of the population age.

What are the most in-demand treatments at your clinic?

Botulinum toxin injections, dermal fillers, platelet rich plasma, redermalisation, the MiraDry sweat treatment, chemical peels and IV drips.

What has been your biggest personal triumph in the aesthetics field?

There are a few worth mentioning; I am a member of the American Board of Regenerative Medicine. I was the first doctor in South Africa to complete the Silhouette Soft Threads course and was the Hyalual Global Key opinion leader. In addition, I worked alongside Restylane on a skinbooster study. I have spoken on international stages for aesthetics congresses in London and Monaco for combination therapies that we have created. I have reached 60,000 treatments without any vascular incidents. But, the biggest triumph in aesthetics would be the creation of a practice that could see this many patients and to give them good results. But I do believe that our biggest achievements are still to come.