Twin studies identify how to stay looking younger
On Sunday Stella Magazine featured a piece about a brilliant study into the ageing process, which examined 186 pairs of identical twins who had made very different lifestyle choices. What better control for an experiment into the nature vs. nurture debate can there be than a genetic doppelganger!
“We wanted to look at the factors that may accelerate aging, what are the things we can control? By changing your behaviors, can you control part of aging that would otherwise be speeded up?’’ Dr. Guyuron
Professor Bahman Guyuron of Cleveland University proved unsurprisingly that sun worship caused the most dramatic difference in accelerated ageing. The good news is that habitual use of sunscreens was proven to protect against premature maturing of the skin so we don’t have to avoid the sun completely. Smoking came a close second, in fact for every 10 years a twin smoked, she appeared two years older than her non-smoking sister, with sagging skin, deeper wrinkles and pronounced under-eye bags.
What was interesting was the rules of weight gain. Under the age of 40 weight gain definitely added years to the heavier twin, taking away that youthful definition. But after that age threshold a few extra pounds smoothed out wrinkles that were much more defined on the skinnier twin. HRT and the contraceptive pill also proved an effective way of keeping the years off.
Other key lifestyle factors that caused accelerated ageing were alcohol consumption which affects collagen production, anti-depressants, excessive stress and divorce which added an average of 1.7 years!
Charlotte and Rebecca on the left have similar