Experts warn about risks of cosmetic face fillers

People who have cosmetic filler injections in their face should be warned of the risk of a dangerous complication involving blocked arteries that can lead to skin loss and even blindness due to damaged blood flow, say experts.

Researchers used ultrasound to study 100 cases of filler injections that had gone wrong, BBC News reported.

Clinics are now being advised to carry out ultrasounds before giving dermal fillers in the face, to avoid harming any nearby arteries.

Lead researcher Dr Rosa Sigrist says that, although uncommon, such "vascular occlusion" events - where the filler is injected into or too close to blood vessels - can be devastating because they can cause tissue death and facial deformity if not treated.

Dermal fillers are injectable substances, commonly used to target wrinkles and smooth or "rejuvenate" the skin.

Sometimes they are used to contour or shape the nose or lips.

Areas around the nose are particularly risky injection sites, says Dr Sigrist, because nasal blood vessels communicate with some very important parts of the head.

Damage to these vessels can cause severe complications including skin damage, blindness and stroke, she explains.

Dr Sigrist's team, from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, studied filler-related vascular complications in 100 patients across four radiology centers (two in Brazil, one in Colombia and one in Chile), one dermatology centre in the Netherlands and one plastic surgery centre in the US between May 2022 and April 2025.

Her work will be presented at a medical conference - the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America - this week.

In just under half the cases, ultrasound scans showed absent blood flow to small blood vessels that connect superficial arteries to deep ones in the face.

And in a third of cases, blood flow was absent in major blood vessels.

To avoid complications in the first place, she advises clinics to use ultrasound to plan where to inject.

If complications do arise, ultrasound can guide where to treat.

"If injectors are not guided by ultrasound, they treat based on where the clinical findings are and inject blindly," Dr. Sigrist says.

"But if we can see the ultrasound finding, we can target the exact place where the occlusion occurs."

Rather than flooding the area with a drug called hyaluronidase to dissolve the filler, clinicians can do guided injections that use less hyaluronidase and provide better treatment results, she says. Source: https://www.panorama.am/

Read More........→January 04, 2026

Western Tatami Mat Mania Keeping Alive Japan’s Traditional Woven Grass Flooring Industry

A modern tatami room – credit, Filiz Elaerts on Unsplash

Western admirers of Japanese aesthetic are keeping afloat tatami craftsmen in Japan, where modernity and maintenance requirements are driving down interest in this artisanal form of flooring.

From Europe to the US and even in the Middle East, eager importers of tatami mats now account for a sizable amount of orders from workshops like that run by Mr. Fumio Kuboki.

Kuboki is just the latest of his kin to run the family business which has been making tatami mats for 280 years. He still sells mostly to the Japanese market, but substantial help is coming from across the Pacific.

Half of the company’s international orders come from the US, Kuboki told the Japan Times.

For hundreds of years, a Japanese house wouldn’t be complete without wall-to-wall mats made of woven grass, called tatami. Made of tightly woven igusa grass, they were the standard feature in all dry rooms.

But one of Japan’s great marvels is that, even with as characteristic and attractive a traditional culture as it cultivated over the centuries, its modern aesthetic and lifestyle is almost just as iconic. As a result, the tatami mat has become somewhat neglected among Japanese crafts: reminiscent of your grandparents house and rural living.

Western-style flooring began to be the norm starting in the 1970s, and China began mass producing synthetic tatami that was easier to clean, longer-lasting, and cheaper to replace. As a result, it’s estimated that every year, 40 traditional tatami makers close up shop for good.

Yet for the increasing number of foreign residents, tatami represents the attractiveness of the Japanese aesthetic, and as well as installing it in their residences in the country, many of them bring it back to Europe or the US.

Arno Suzuki, a professor of architectural design at Kyoto Tachibana University who has studied the use of tatami in Spain, Italy and France, told the Times that seeing the appreciation for tatami among the rest of the world has somewhat reminded the younger generations of Japan of its value

Having a tatami “space” in an apartment or house is suddenly not as uncool as it once was.

“Nowadays they have a tatami space—not a tatami room, but at the corner of their living room they have three or four tatami mats, and they enjoy it. And also, many people realize that it’s better for when—especially when they have small kids, like toddlers and babies, it’s safer for them to crawl,” Suzuki told the Times.

In the city of Kobe, Taro Mano is the 4th in his family to take over the 70-year-old tatami business. He too has seen a rise from foreign buyers in countries like those Suzuki studied in.

“Tatami is a kind of symbol of Japan. It’s an easy way to express a Japanese atmosphere, even in other countries,” Mr. Mano said, adding that he first thought the interest would come from the United States, but it came to be far more diverse than that.

Mr. Kuboki makes some 10% of his revenues from overseas sales, with many of his products being stocked year-round at Japan House in Los Angeles. 100 years ago, no one ever wondered what else could be made of tatami, but now, whether it’s a coaster or a book cover, the artform is being reimagined.“Every day I talk with visitors and listen to what kind of tatami they want,” Mr. Kuboki said. “The products that are selected and loved by people are the ones that will naturally become the future of tatami. The future of tatami will be decided by customers.” Western Tatami Mat Mania Keeping Alive Japan’s Traditional Woven Grass Flooring Industry

Read More........→January 02, 2026