An elderly Chinese woman looks out her window. File Photo by UPI/Stephen Shaver |
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SHANGHAI, March 31 (UPI) -- Scientists in China say they can calculate a person's biological age using only an image of their face, using a new image-scanning technology and computer algorithm.
Biological age, as opposed to chronological age, is a measure of how well or poorly a person's body is aging. Biological age is a physiological measurement, offering an estimate as to how quickly or slowly a person's body is breaking down -- showing (on the inside and outside) the effects of time.
Researchers created their aging analysis system by scanning more than 300 faces, including the faces of people as young as 17 and as old as 77. The technology, able to pick to slightest of contour changes in a person's face, was able to plot a trajectory of biological aging. Newly scanned faces are compared against this trajectory.
As the plotted trajectory shows, there are a range of changes that occur on an aging face. Noses become enlarged. Wrinkles manifest themselves. Eyes corners begin to sag. Gravity slowly but surely takes its toll.
"I did not expect to see such remarkable changes with age, nor did I expect the 3D images to be such a good biomarker for biological age," study leader Jing-Dong Han, a researcher at the the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, told the Guardian. "They turned out to be as accurate as the most accurate marker to date."
After programming the technology, researchers found the algorithm always placed a person's biological age within six years of their chronological age. Han and his colleagues tested the blood of people who showed the most difference between the two ages.
They found people whose facial age was accelerated also exhibited biomarkers associated with pronounced or faster aging. They found the opposite for those deemed to look younger.
"The predicted fast agers do have more accelerated aging blood profiles, and vice versa for the slower agers," Han added.
As all of the study participants were Chinese, additional research is needed to determine whether the technology will work with other ethnic groups.
Researchers say the technology could eventually be used to determine whether anti-aging creams and treatments are successful or not.
"Aging is associated with many complex diseases. Reliable prediction of the aging process is important for assessing the risks of aging-associated diseases," the researchers concluded in their new paper.
The study was published in the latest issue of the journal Cell Research.
