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Diets 'make you look older'

By Elizabeth Heathcote on Tuesday 31 March 2009

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Nigella-Lawson, Celebrity News, Health News

The actress Catherine Deneuve, who said that a women over 30 must choose between her body and her face, is correct, say scientists.

New research suggests that losing 10lbs can age a woman over 40 by as much as four years, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Having plump cheeks and soft features, like Nigella Lawson, meanwhile, makes a woman look younger.

American researchers studied 200 pairs of identical female twins for two years, monitoring their body mass index and assessing the apparent age of their faces.

"A BMI higher by four points was found to result in a younger appearance of between two and four years in women over 40 years old, said Dr Bahaman Guyuron of Case Western Reverse University in the US.

Divorce also had a negative effect on appearance – separated women looked around 1.7 years older than married or single women. Smoking, drinking, exposure to sun and depression, all also take a toll, the Plastic and Reconstructive Journal reported.

Rajiv Grover, secretary of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, told the Daily Mail that the problem can be compounded by yoyo dieting. "The more fat that is preserved in the face, particularly the cheeks, the more you will preserve the facial proportions of youth," he said.

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