By:JEFF LIPTON
A bunch of laboratory rats are a whole lot thinner, thanks to the work of Hewlett plastic surgeon Zachary Gerut, who is trying to transfer his success with lab animals to humans.
Dr. Gerut recently won Federal Drug Administration approval to determine if an injection of an enzyme in humans can dissolve fat as it has in experiments with lab rats. If it proves successful, Gerut may have a major breakthrough in the fight against obesity. It could be a viable alternative to the painful surgical procedure liposuction.
"We have completed our multiple rounds of experimentation on laboratory animals and the trials so far have been successful," said Gerut, who opened an office in Hewlett in 1987 and has been practicing aesthetic plastic surgery out of 1245 Colonial Road for the past five years. "We do not know if it will be successful on humans. That's what we are going to find out." Gerut also has an office on Park Avenue in Manhattan.
Gerut, who also lives in the Five Towns, was actually researching whether the enzyme collagenase could break down scar tissue in rats. While the targeted goal did not pan out, the plastic surgeon came across a more striking discovery, that fat melted away in areas in the rats that were injected with the enzyme.
"My background in aesthetic plastic surgery led me to instantly realize that being able to dissolve fat represents quite a finding," Gerut said.
Much like when penicillin was discovered, this could be labeled an accident. But Gerut does not adhere to that theory. "It's just a matter of being open-minded enough to see there is something else going on besides the target desired result that you are looking for," he said.
He is in the process of conducting a limited study of about a dozen people -- volunteers and patients -- who are being injected with the enzyme to determine if it does dissolve fat in humans. After the initial study is completed, he will move to the next phase, when he will study the enzyme's effect on a large number of patients and compare them with those in the study group who are not injected with collagenase.
"Basically we may have something here that dissolves fat," Gerut said. "What that means to 60 percent of the American population that's obese and cannot lose weight, that's going to have to be for someone else to extrapolate."
Gerut said it is too early to determine if there will be any potential side effects and said there would probably be no health risks.
"Hypothetically, we're talking about injecting an enzyme that is already present in the human body in great quantity. This is not a synthetic chemical that we're introducing that has never been in the body before," he said. "The patients involved in the studies are being made aware of the risks, that's for sure.
"FDA wouldn't allow human testing if it didn't feel that way."
The idea that it could be an alternative to liposuction is a most attractive aspect of the discovery by Gerut, who performs liposuction on his patients. Liposuction is a significant surgical procedure whereby very small incisions are made on the patient. But it involves very wide areas of surgery using a cannula, which transmits the vacuum into the tissues and sucks the fat out.
Liposuction is the number-one procedure performed by plastic surgeons. About 400,000 liposuctions were done nationwide last year by board-certified plastic surgeons. Liposuction is painful, as well as costly. It is not yet known how much the injections of collagenase would cost.
But Gerut's patients are hoping the collagenase treatment gets the go-ahead.
One patient, who identified herself only as "Nancy," said she underwent liposuction about eight months ago. "I can't explain it," she said. "I never felt like that before. I was under anesthesia, but after that, I was very, very sore. This [collagenase] should be a walk in the breeze. People will be lining up outside his [Gerut's] door to get it.
"I can't imagine instead of going through surgery to have a little needle stuck in you," said Nancy, who is on a list of volunteers for the human study.
About 65 percent of the U.S. population is overweight, and in many cases it is a major health risk. "Right now people are spending a fortune on fat diets, liposuction, etc., etc. In addition, people who are grossly obese are undergoing life-threatening major operations to bypass their intestines, staple their stomachs, etc.," Gerut said.
Since word of Gerut's discovery got out, he has received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from people across the country pleading for his help.
"Clearly there is a demand for something like this, from the obese to those with multi-fatty tumors all over their body and unsightly fatty deposits," he said.
The typical feedback has been: "I'm 380 pounds with terrible heart disease and I'm too sick to use liposuction. Can you help me?"
Inventing new medical procedures is not new to Gerut. He is one of the few doctors who has pioneered the procedure of breast implants by making a tiny scar on the underarm using endoscopic surgery, the use of a tiny camera inside the patient. He said he performs many non-surgical medical procedures painlessly on his patients. Votox and collagen injections are done painlessly, as is laser hair removal. In addition, microdermabrasion, which is a permanent makeup, is also performed totally painlessly by him, he said.
Gerut is board certified by American Board of Plastic Surgery, trained at Montefiore and Albert Einstein Medical Center in general and plastic surgery, a member of American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, and Medical Society of N.Y. and Nassau County Medical Society. He has also published papers on plastic surgery.
