The desire of many to look young for their age has led to the establishment of a large cosmetics industry. However,\nthe features of appearance that primarily determine how old women look for their age and whether genetic or\nenvironmental factors predominately influence such features are largely unknown. We studied the facial appearance of\n102 pairs of female Danish twins aged 59 to 81 as well as 162 British females aged 45 to 75. Skin wrinkling, hair\ngraying and lip height were significantly and independently associated with how old the women looked for their age.\nThe appearance of facial sun-damage was also found to be significantly correlated to how old women look for their\nage and was primarily due to its commonality with the appearance of skin wrinkles. There was also considerable\nvariation in the perceived age data that was unaccounted for. Composite facial images created from women who\nlooked young or old for their age indicated that the structure of subcutaneous tissue was partly responsible.\nHeritability analyses of the appearance features revealed that perceived age, pigmented age spots, skin wrinkles and\nthe appearance of sun-damage were influenced more or less equally by genetic and environmental factors. Hair\ngraying, recession of hair from the forehead and lip height were influenced mainly by genetic factors whereas\nenvironmental factors influenced hair thinning. These findings indicate that women who look young for their age have\nlarge lips, avoid sun-exposure and possess genetic factors that protect against the development of gray hair and skin\nwrinkles. The findings also demonstrate that perceived age is a better biomarker of skin, hair and facial aging than\nchronological age.
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