Smoking really does make you look older, a twin study confirms

[onehandle]

Last edited Wed Oct 30, 2013, 04:21 PM - Edit history (1)

You know smoking doesn’t do any favors for your face – or your lungs, or your heart, or just about any other part of your body, for that matter! – but a new study of twins hints at the ways the habit makes you look older than you really are.

In what is perhaps the best detail of the study, researchers used the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio (the "Largest Annual Gathering of Twins in the World!&quot to round up the 79 identical pairs they include in the report. A panel of three plastic surgery residents compared the faces of the twins, one of which had been smoking for at least five years longer than the other.

They identified a few major areas of accelerated aging in the faces of the smoking twins: The smokers' upper eyelids drooped while the lower lids sagged, and they had more wrinkles around the mouth. The smokers were also more likely to have jowls, according to the study, which was published today in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Smoking reduces oxygen to the skin, which also decreases blood circulation, and that can result in weathered, wrinkled, older-looking skin, explains Dr. Bahman Guyuron, a plastic surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio, and the lead author of the study.

http://www.today.com/health/smoking-really-does-make-you-look-older-twin-study-confirms-8C11488197

[leftynyc]

1. Well

I'm a smoker and my twin is a parent. I look much younger than she does. (we're 52)

[gopiscrap]

2. Yeah I saw that in my mom...I hated the smell of cigarette smoke.

[frazzled]

3. Looks like dying your hair white-blonde makes you look older

Otherwise, they looks the same. (Harsher lighting in the second image aside).

[Tx4obama]

4. Ha! Before reading the answer I guessed the one on the LEFT was the smoker.

Sounds like a bunch of bunk to me.

Eating habits, exposure to the sun, and stress have a lot to do with the condition of your skin, etc.

[onehandle]

5. You don't see all the extra creases and puffiness? Especially around the mouth? nt

[cynatnite]

10. You don't see the extra lipstick on the left one?

That has widened her mouth larger than it actually is. Extra creases can come from sun exposure. Puffiness can be dependent on what time of month it is or if she's menopausal.

This is not a good example to judge by.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

6. Just like in Seinfeld.

Happened to Kramer, y'know, when he turned his apartment into a smoking lounge and was exposed to a lifetime's worth of tobacco smoke in 72 hours. Or something. Umm.

Ah, sitcoms. Is there anything they don't know?

[HappyMe]

7. I don't know.

I don't think one woman looks any older than the other. If anything I would think it would have more to do with the blonde hair.

[cynatnite]

8. May be true, but I don't think this is a good example.

Hair coloring, eyebrows, lipstick and even the clothing difference makes this difficult for me to judge.

On edit: That's not to mention what one lifestyle is compared to the next or their state of health.

[cthulu2016]

9. The reason for the effect is disputed

Nobody disputes that smoking makes one age faster in the face, but the ill health effects of smoking are not nessecarily the cause.

Smokers move their mouth and jaw a lot more than non-smokers, and use their cheeks like a bellows for the steady draw of smoke.

[Aristus]

11. Oh shit. A "Smoking Is Bad for You" thread.

Can torches and pitchforks be far behind?

I know I've received howls of outrage for suggesting, in my capacity as a medical provider, that smoking is bad for you. Let's see how this one plays out...

[trumad]

12. Just stand outside a building and look at the smokers

about as unhealthy a people as there is.

[BainsBane]

13. That's obvious

Smokers age far more rapidly.

[kiva]

14. Might be true, but you couldn't prove it by this picture.

Or, if you go to the link, the pictures of the two men. Only the last one, to me, looks like they used the same lighting and background, so an actual comparison.