Looking old may damage your health

Telltale signs of being past your prime, such as baldness and creased earlobes, may provide an early warning of heart disease, say scientists.

Researchers found that men and women who had three to four ageing signs were 57 per cent more likely than younger looking individuals to suffer a heart attack. Their overall risk of heart disease was raised by 39 per cent.

“The visible signs of ageing reflect physiologic or biological age, not chronological age, and are independent of chronological age,” said lead scientist Professor Anne-Tybjaerg-Hansen, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Her team studied almost 11,000 men and women aged 40 years and older, noting four key signs of ageing – receding hairline, crown top baldness, earlobe creases, and yellow fatty deposits around the eyes.

Over the next 35 years, 3,401 of the participants developed heart disease and 1,708 suffered a heart attack.