Stretch marks are common and can crop up at anytime throughout your life. They can be red, purple, brown or silvery-white (when they're older) and are generally caused by the skin stretching and shrinking due to puberty,  pregnancy or significant weight changes over a short period of time.

They are perhaps unfairly named, however, as skin stretching is not simply the reason for them appearing. The physical changes cause elevated levels of hormones called glucocorticoids to be produced by the adrenal glands; these can cause the collagen and elastin fibres of the skin to tear when stretched.

Doctors have found that the elastic fibre network, which give the skin its ability to ‘snap back,’ gets disrupted in a stretch mark. The skin tries to repair the disrupted elastic network but can't, which in turn results in not only the stretch mark but also the lax, loose skin seen in more mature stretch marks.

While doctors agree that you can’t prevent stretch marks from forming, a  ‘game-changing’ treatment now available in the UK promises to significantly reduce their appearance. With a 95 per cent success rate on all skin types and no downtime, most patients find a significant improvement after six sessions.

Using new skin regeneration technology, Biodermogenesi from Fusion GT relies on a powerful combination of electromagnetic energy and vacuum technology to increase oxygenation, rebuild collagen and completely restructure damaged cells within the skin to give visible results.

Biodermogenesi is currently the only treatment available that enables self-renewal of the tissues, completely rewinding time without damaging the skin biologically. The non-invasive treatment can also be used to fill in the stretch mark’s hollow area session by session, which then allows the natural tanning process to occur. Research suggests that it is also effective against cellulite and skin hypotonia, as well as treatment of burn scars and post-surgical scars with no side effects.

Dr Alex Bader, a leading Aesthetic Doctor at Bader Medical in London, was the first doctor in the UK to have access to Biodermogenesi. Bader said: “Biodermogenesi is a highly effective treatment method for all kinds of stretch marks. No other treatment currently available is able to ensure that stretch marks disappear completely and return to the normal skin appearance.

“With the Biodermogenesi method, we can straighten the rough skin and by improving melanocytes in the treated area we help stretch marks gain colour even in the late-term marks, which no other treatment can do.”

Treatment costs vary between clinics but generally patients can expect to pay £2,200 per course of six treatments and results are proven to last long term—with clinical studies showing that the improvement achieved remained stable, even after more than five years after the end of treatment.