The serious health concerns associated with smoking cigarettes have been widely documented for many years, but now a new study has provided shocking photographic evidence of the devastating effects that addiction can have on a person’s face.
Researchers interviewed more than 70 pairs of identical twins where one smoked and the other didn’t and found that smokers showed considerably more signs of premature facial aging.
The most significant impact was on the lower two-thirds of a person’s face where smoking had caused greater wrinkling of the lips and sagging jowls.
A professional photographer took standardized, close-up photographs of each twin's face. The twins also completed questionnaires regarding their medical and lifestyle histories
Without knowledge of the twins' smoking history, plastic surgeons then analyzed the twins' facial features, including grading of wrinkles and age-related facial features.
Scores on several measures of facial aging were significantly worse for the smokers.
The smokers had more sagging of the upper eyelids, as well as more bags of the lower eyelids and under the eyes.
Twins who smoked also had higher scores for facial wrinkles, including more pronounced nasolabial folds (lines between the nose and mouth), wrinkling of the upper and lower lips and sagging jowls.
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.
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