Craft MD

The best anti-aging treatment I can prescribe doesn't come from my OR. 💪

I'm a plastic surgeon. I make my living working on faces and bodies. And the single most powerful longevity, function, and aesthetic intervention I can point a patient toward is not a syringe, a laser, or a scalpel — it's a barbell.

This whole post was sparked by Dr. Howard Luks's excellent piece "Muscle is Medicine." I want to bring it to my audience because muscle is the most under-prescribed drug we have.

A few things I want you to take from this:

💊 You lose 3–8% of your muscle per decade after 30 — and it accelerates after 60. Most of that loss isn't "just aging." It's from not challenging muscle. Your body removes what you don't use.

💊 Muscle isn't vanity. It's an organ. It's your largest glucose sink (the thing protecting you from insulin resistance), an internal pharmacy releasing signaling molecules called myokines, and the literal scaffolding that keeps you from breaking a hip when you trip on a rug at 75.

💊 Grip strength predicts all-cause mortality better than systolic blood pressure (PURE study, The Lancet, 139,691 participants). Each 5kg drop in grip strength tracks with a 16% higher risk of dying from any cause and a 21% higher risk of cardiovascular death. Read that twice.

💊 When muscle goes, everything else follows: bone density, balance, metabolism, recovery from illness or surgery, function, and ultimately — independence. Most people don't lose their independence from a single dramatic illness. They lose it from weakness, accumulated over a hundred small hits no one was training for.

💊 My favorite framing, borrowed from Dr. Luks: muscle is a retirement account. You deposit into it in your 30s, 40s, 50s. You withdraw from it in your 60s, 70s, 80s — after a surgery, after an illness, to keep living on your own terms. Compound interest works in muscle, too.

The dose that actually works:

🔹 Resistance training 2–3x per week. Progressive overload. Not "toning." Actually lifting.
🔹 Protein — roughly 1g per lb of goal body weight, spread across meals.
🔹 Walk. 8–10k steps. The cheapest medicine ever invented.
🔹 Sleep 7–9 hours. Muscle repairs while you do.
🔹 St

There's now an app for that. 🌞📱

Teens are using "UV optimization" apps to track the UV index and time their day around peak-sun hours — all to chase the darkest possible tan. As a plastic surgeon, here's what that app is actually counting: your DNA damage, in real time.

Let's be clear about what a tan is. It is not a sign of health. A tan is your skin's emergency response to UV that has *already* damaged the DNA in your cells. The color is the cleanup crew arriving after the injury — not armor against the next one. There's no safe tan from UV, and a "base tan" buys you roughly an SPF of 3. Basically nothing.

A few things the trend leaves out:

☀️ UV radiation is a Group 1 carcinogen per the WHO's cancer agency (IARC) — the same certainty category as to***co and asbestos. "Optimizing" your sun exposure is optimizing your dose of a known carcinogen.

☀️ "Peak crisping hours" (≈10am–4pm) are exactly when UV does the most damage per minute. That's the window dermatologists tell you to AVOID — the apps are pointing you straight into it.

☀️ Up to ~90% of visible facial aging is from the sun — wrinkles, sunspots, broken capillaries, leathery texture. The tan you chase at 17 becomes the laser, peel, and filler bills at 40. I'd genuinely rather you never need me for that.

☀️ 5+ blistering sunburns before age 20 raise melanoma risk by about 80% (American Academy of Dermatology). Melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young adults. Most of that damage is banked before you're 20.

Want the glow without the cost? Self-tanner or bronzer gives you the color with zero UV. SPF 30+ daily, reapplied. UPF clothing, a hat, and shade in the middle of the day. Skip tanning beds entirely. And if a mole is new or changing, see a dermatologist.

You can absolutely look sun-kissed. Just don't let an app talk you into trading your future skin for it.

Save this and send it to someone who "lays out." 🤙

— Dr. Randy Craft, MD, MBA · double board-certified, Harvard-trained · .randy.craft

This is general education, not medical advice for your specific situation.

Young men are now getting most of their cosmetic advice from people with zero medical training. I see the results walk into my office. Let's break down five of the viral "hacks" that need to stop 👇

1️⃣ BONESMASHING — hitting your own face with hard objects

The claim: it "stimulates bone growth" via Wolff's Law for a chiseled look.
The reality: Wolff's Law describes gradual remodeling under controlled muscle loading. Not blunt-force trauma. The hashtag has hundreds of millions of views. The clinical support: zero.
The risk: fractures, nerve damage, vision loss, permanent disfigurement.
Instead: strength training and sleep build a healthy jaw. Surgery is a real option — done by someone trained.

2️⃣ MEWING — pressing your tongue against your palate

The claim: it will reshape your jaw.
The reality: tongue posture has minor merit in growing children. In adults, your bones are fused. It won't reshape your mandible.
The risk: aggressive "hard mewing" can trigger TMJ pain, headaches, and dental issues.
Instead: lower body fat %, fix neck posture, and accept that bone is bone.

3️⃣ CHEWING DEVICES & MASTIC GUM — for a "sharper" jawline

The claim: hypertrophy your jaw muscle for definition.
The reality: it works — but a bigger masseter makes your face WIDER, not sharper. That's the opposite of what most people want.
The risk: TMJ dysfunction, dental damage, asymmetric development.
Instead: the chiseled look you want is mostly low body fat + good lighting + good skin.

4️⃣ BUCCAL FAT REMOVAL — for a "snatched" face

The claim: pull out the cheek fat for a model-level look.
The reality: buccal fat is FOUNDATION fat. It doesn't regenerate. The fullness you hate at 25 is what stops you looking gaunt at 45. Requests dropped 35% in 2025 as regret spreads — and several celebrities are now reversing it with fat grafting.
The risk: permanent facial hollowing, premature aged appearance.
Instead: wait. If you still want it at 30+, see a board-certified surgeon who will tell you no most of the time.

5️⃣ CHEAP FILLER & FILLER ABROAD — back rooms, friends' apartments, unregulated clinics

The claim: same product, fraction of the price.
The reality: counterfeit filler. Untrained