Italian doctors have just discovered that Botox, the popular drug for smoothing out wrinkles could also ease swallowing problems, especially among diabetics who have suffered some nerve damage.

Reuters gives us the details:

"We believe that botulinum toxin may be a first-line intervention" in such cases, Dr. Damiano Gullo told Reuters Health.

Gullo, from the Garibaldi Hospital in Catania, and his colleagues assessed the safety and efficacy of botulinum toxin injected into the upper sphincter of the esophagus in 12 people with type 2 diabetes who had severe swallowing impairment.

There is no longer any question about the increasing popularity and acceptance of cosmetic surgery. With each passing month, countries where procedures such as liposuction or rhinoplasty were virtually nonexistent perhaps a decade or two ago are now finding themselves in the midst of a cosmetic surgery boom. The North African country of Morocco is one of them.

From Magharebia:

According to plastic surgeon Ramzy Rachid, Morocco is seeing a growing number of clients. The majority of practices have seen the number of patients double or even triple over the last few years. "Many patients come to us for simple size reductions," Rachid says. He says 60% to 70% of cosmetic surgery patients are younger than 40. "We are a long way from the average age of the past, which was sixty years. There's no typical profile."

The episode opens with Sean cleansing his home as he packs up with Christian’s help. There are two people burning sagey stuff trying to get rid of the bad vibes in the home. Christian, in the Christian way, points them toward the nursery…because of Julia and Marlowe. Sean mentions he’s off to LA for an interview – the plastic surgery capital of the world. Christian hands Sean a check – he is officially bought out. The cleansers came out and said they’d be back in an hour to finish – the handyman said they were disturbing him. Sean and Christian didn’t have a handyman in the bedroom – they run, and there, on the bed, is Escobar Gallardo. He needs them.

"Disgusting" and "unbelievably disturbing" – straight from the mouths of Kate Winslet and Billie Piper, two of Britain's most successful actresses, referring to the trend for models and celebrities who labor it out to achieve super-skinny figures.

Speaking on BBC's Sunday AM, the very words of Miss Winslet:

"It is unbelievably disturbing what's going on at the moment…because young girls are impressionable from 11 up to 19 or 20 even, women are very impressionable at those ages. They're trying to figure out who they are and they want to be loved, and what I resent is that there is an image of perfection that is getting thinner and thinner and it's truly upsetting to me."

Official guidelines issued on December 13 mandated that children as young as 12 could be given anti-obesity drugs and stomach-stapling surgery as part of a arrangement to tackle the obesity epidemic.

In August, the Department of Health reported that a third of all adults and a fifth of all children under 15 would be clinically obese by 2010. Meaning, more than 12 million adults and a million children are expected to be obese - with several million more being overweight.

This development, reported on the website SocietyGuardian.co.uk, is touted to be the government's first comprehensive review of the obesity problem.

Not much, but always a news -- when the ‘Most Requested Features’ (MRF) or “Hollywood’s Hottest Looks” list comes once in a while, they pull off a stop…”I agree!”…”Not really.”…”Where is?”

We couldn’t care less whoever is spinning the list. Fans and non-fans are following – and, by the looks of it, it is fun validating or refuting the entries.

And it is likely that Hollywood has a “Looks Department” on the prowl to actually keep an eye on this -- as mundane as Salma Hayek’s chin? Anyway, we are pretty sure that the stars in the list did not in any way sway the pundits.

"For most of my life I've been on some kind of diet and worried about staying slim and looking a certain way for fashion shoots or when I would be shooting a film."

Contactmusic quoted the gorgeous Liv Tyler, as saying. Then one September morn Liv slammed mothers who try to get back into shape as soon as they've given birth. Yes, The pouty The Lord of The Rings star is annoyed when new mums seemingly focus on their figure instead of their child.

Liv gave birth to his son Milo in December 2004 and refused to go on dieting or hit the gym after delivering, as she wanted to spend quality time with her family.

In another marketing ploy that has caught the attention of the buying public and earned the ire of a group of plastic surgeons, several cosmetic surgery clinics in Wales have taken to selling gift vouchers that entitle buyers to a cosmetic procedure or two in their clinics.

From icWales:

It’s causing a bit of a stir but cosmetic surgery clinics in Wales are selling vouchers for husbands and boyfriends who want that ultimate gift you can’t get in the shops. Prices on average are £3,900 for a breast enlargement, £170 for anti-wrinkle botox injections and £4,300 for a facelift.

Remember the movie "Fight Club", where Brad Pitt’s character steals liposuctioned human fat discarded by a plastic surgery clinic and uses it as the main ingredient for his self-manufactured soap? Well, this bit of news is a little something like that, although not as gross.

A Norwegian businessman is eyeing suctioned fat for use in making an alternative source of fuel. From United Press International:

Biodiesel can be produced from either plant oils or animal fat, and Lauri Venoy sees the product from liposuction procedures as a renewable energy source, Aftenposten said.

Adrianne Curry, the first winner of the top-rating reality show “America’s Next Top Model”, has admitted to having cosmetic surgery.

In an interview with Hollyscoop, Curry, who is also the star of the VH1 reality series "My Fair Brady", confessed that she has had breast augmentation to fix her uneven breasts. And her plastic surgery experience, she reveals, is not an entirely pleasant one.

This was no regular breast implant, one of Adrianne’s breasts have always been larger than the other and she thought it was time to finally fix it. Her left breast was over an inch wider than the right and 20% bigger. Adrianne revealed to us that she became obsessed with the issue this past year especially “since [she] turned 24 and gravity started taking a toll on [her] breasts”. Her breasts started to sag and Adrianne became "overcompensated with false confidence".