People blessed with youthful faces are more likely to live to a ripe old age than those who look more than their years

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. 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. 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.

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