Laugh harder to reveal bone health
Laugh lines may offer clues to the health of your bones, a new study has found. Research revealed women who have deep wrinkles in their 40s and 50s have a lower bone density.
Laugh lines may offer clues to the health of your bones, a new study has found.
Research revealed women who have deep wrinkles in their 40s and 50s have a lower bone density.
Researcher and reproductive endocrinologist at America’s Yale School, Dr Lubna Pal, said the information may allow for the “possibility of identifying postmenopausal women at fracture risk at a glance, without dependence on costly tests”.
Dr Pal and her colleagues studied 114 women in their late 40s and early 50s who had had their last menstrual period within the past three years and were not taking hormone therapy drugs.
Women were excluded from participating if they had undergone any cosmetic skin procedures.
The researchers gave each women a score for her face and neck wrinkles based on the number of sites with wrinkles and on the depth of the wrinkles.
They also measured the firmness of the skin on the women’s foreheads and cheeks with a device called a ‘durometer’, and also measured their bone densities with an X-ray analysis.
Women with worse wrinkles had lower bone density than women with smoother faces.
This relationship between wrinkles and bone density was evident in all the bones the researchers tested, which were hip, lumbar spine and heel, and was independent of age, percentage of body fat and other factors known to influence bone density.
Further, firmer face and forehead skin was associated with greater bone density.
“Bones and skin share common building blocks, a group of proteins known as collagens,” Dr Pal said.
“As we age, changes in collagen may account for age-related skin changes, including worsening skin wrinkles and sagging skin, and also contribute to deterioration of bone.
“Ultimately, we want to know if intensity of skin wrinkles can allow identification of women who are more likely to fracture a bone, especially the femoral neck or the hip, an often fatal injury in older people,” she continued.
Despite the in-depth research, Dr Pal said further investigation was required to verify the results.
