Influence of environmental factors on facial ageing

Background: a recent twin study has shown that ‘looking old for one’s age ’ is associated with increased mortality. Approxi-mately 40 % of the variation in perceived age is due to non-genetic factors. Objective: to examine environmental factors influencing perceived age controlling for diseases. Design: a twin study. Setting: in the 2001 wave of the population-based survey—the Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins—participants provided information on a wide range of exposures and health indicators. Additionally, they were asked to have a face photo-graph taken. Subjects: a total of 1826 elderly (70+) twins who had a high-quality face photograph taken. Methods: ten nurses assessed the visual age of each twin from the face photograph. The mean of the nurses ’ age estimates for each twin was used as the twin’s perceived age. Multivariate linear regression and intrapair comparison (for intact twin pairs) were used for analyses. Results: statistically significant determinants of facial ageing associated with high perceived age for men were smoking (P = 0.01), sun exposure (P = 0.02) and low body mass index (BMI) (P<0.005), while for women they were low BMI (P = 0.05) and low social class (P<0.005). The number of children (men) and marital status (P = 0.08) and depression symptomatology score (women) were borderline significantly associated with facial ageing. Conclusion: our study confirms previous findings of a negative influence of sun exposure, smoking and a low BMI on facial ageing. Furthermore, our study indicates that high social status, low depression score and being married are associated with a younger look, but the strength of the associations varies between genders