People Who Look Younger, Live Longer

[stromboli]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8411329.stm

People blessed with youthful faces are more likely to live to a ripe old age than those who look more than their years, work shows.
Danish scientists say appearance alone can predict survival, after they studied 387 pairs of twins.
The researchers asked nurses, trainee teachers and peers to guess the age of the twins from mug shots.
Those rated younger-looking tended to outlive their older-looking sibling, the British Medical Journal reports.
Survival advantage
The researchers also found a plausible biological explanation for their results.
Key pieces of DNA called telomeres, which indicate the ability of cells to replicate, are also linked to how young a person looks.
   
 Perceived age, which is widely used by clinicians as a general indication of a patient's health, is a robust biomarker of ageing that predicts survival among those aged over 70  
The report authors
A telomere of shorter length is thought to signify faster ageing and has been linked with a number of diseases.
In the study, the people who looked younger had longer telomeres.
All of the twins were in their 70s, 80s or 90s when they were photographed.
Over a seven-year follow-up the researchers, led by Professor Kaare Christensen of the University of Southern Denmark, found that the bigger the difference in perceived age within a pair, the more likely it was that the older-looking twin died first.
The age, sex and professional background of the assessors made no difference to any of the results.
   
 It's probably a combination of genes plus environment over a lifetime that are important  
UK expert Professor Tim Spector
Professor Christensen said it might be that people who have had a tougher life are more likely to die early - and their life is reflected in their face.
The researchers told the BMJ: "Perceived age, which is widely used by clinicians as a general indication of a patient's health, is a robust biomarker of ageing that predicts survival among those aged over 70."
Professor Tim Spector, a UK expert who has been doing his own twin research, said: "We are also finding this in our study.
"It's probably a combination of genes plus environment over a lifetime that are important."
He said the findings also show that people are good at assessing how well someone is and that doctors should eyeball their patients.
"If a patient looks older than their years then perhaps they should be more concerned," he said.

I can attest to this. My family:
Oldest brother, looked younger than his age, died at 93
Sister, same, 90 years old
Sister, same, 88
Other sister, not looking younger than her age, dead from diabetes
Other sister, looks younger than her age, 82
Brother, not looking younger, dead from heart attack at 66
Brother, not looking younger, dead from liver failure at 44

Me- looks younger, has silver hair, alive and well at 64.

I totally buy into this.

[the_antithesis]

Oh shit. I'm going to die.

[Solitary]

My grandfather on my mothers side of the family was 82 and looked like he was 62 and acted like he was 32 and got caught by much younger woman's husband in bed with her. At the time I had a new 63 corvette that he asked if he could drive it. He drove it like a maniac. A neighbor asked who was driving my car because he never saw me drive like that. He went through 6 wives that died before him.

When he was 92 he went to a hospital and they asked him what was wrong. He told them that all his daughters, wives, and friends were all dead and he came there to die. They kept him over night for a mental observation. The next day they found him dead. No cause of death could be determined. He was never sick and always in perfect health.

My older sister looked in pictures like a model at 34 when she was 74. However she died from a broken heart (heart attack 15 years later) after her husband died in bed with a college student he taught that was 30 years younger. My mother looked 19-15 years younger than she was but was an alcoholic and died at 62 from pancreatic cancer. I have the gene for it. 8-[    :shock:   Solitary

[Colanth]

I guess I'll be around for a while, then.  People never believe me when I tell them my age.  (And I have good genes - my father drowned at 78, trying to swim 14 miles, and my mother was killed by a nursing home error at the age of 90, still as sharp as a tack.)