Friday, 2 March 2012

Temporal Muscle Wasting - What Is It?

Dr. Drew on HLN spoke about Angelina Jolie's thinness the other night (see my post about this episode).  During the show he mentioned that Angelina Jolie had temporal muscle wasting.  When I heard this term, I thought what exactly is temporal muscle wasting and what does it mean for a person with it.  I'll bet a lot of you are thinking the same thing.  I have done some research and here are my findings on Temporal Muscle Wasting.

The temporal region is basically the side of the head. When the temples of your head  are concave or depressed this is what temporal wasting looks like. It makes your forehead look larger and gives an alien-like appearance--not attractive at all!

 According to the explore plastic surgery website, it can be caused by surgery (muscle wasting after a craniotomy); a medical condition such as fat atrophy from weight loss or medications; or a congenital condition called lipoatrophy which is atrophy (wasting or decrease) of subcutaneous fatty tissues of the body.

According to some diseases that exhibit muscle and fat wasting all over the body not just the temporal area are:  diabetes, stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), muscular dystrophy, HIV, thyroid disorders and polio.  Of course anorexia and other eating disorders can also produce muscle loss as the body slows down fat loss metabolism to protect itself during starvation, it alternately burns muscle for fuel to reduce energy requirements (since muscle burns more calories the body would rather burn off muscle than fat so it conserves calories).  This is why fasting often causes muscle loss--not a good thing.

The wasting of muscle in the temporal region is often called "peanut head" and produces an appearance of illness. Aside from trying to help the condition that caused the concave peanut head appearance, cosmetic surgery can help to hide the appearance of temporal muscle wasting. 

Here is a link to Dr. Drew's video/show about Angelina's apparent malnutrition.

In-N-Out Double Double Cheese Burger - how can anyone in California be skinny with these around.  Being from Canada, I am deprived.
Photo Credit: Jess Sawrey, L.A. California


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