{"id":27434,"date":"2025-05-08T23:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27434"},"modified":"2025-05-08T23:33:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T23:33:21","slug":"scientists-are-developing-a-tool-to-measure-biological-age-with-a-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27434","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Are Developing a Tool to Measure Biological Age With a Photo"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Scientists have developed an A.I. tool that they say can help assess a patient\u2019s health \u2014 and potentially guide their medical care.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

It\u2019s no secret that some people appear to age faster than others, especially after enduring stressful periods. But some scientists think a person\u2019s physical appearance could reveal more about them than meets the eye \u2014 down to the health of their tissues and cells, a concept known as \u201cbiological age.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a new study<\/a>, published Thursday in The Lancet Digital Health, researchers trained artificial intelligence to estimate the biological ages of adults with cancer by analyzing photos of their faces. Study participants with younger estimates tended to fare better after treatment than those deemed older by A.I., researchers at Mass General Brigham found.<\/p>\n

The findings suggest that people\u2019s biological age estimates are closely linked to their physical health, which could reflect their ability to survive certain treatments, the authors of the study said. And in the future, facial age analysis may become more useful than age alone in helping doctors make tough calls about their patients\u2019 treatment, they added.<\/p>\n

Face-based aging tools have \u201cextraordinary potential\u201d to help doctors quickly and inexpensively estimate how healthy their patients are, compared with existing tests, which use blood or saliva to measure chemical and molecular changes associated with aging, said William Mair, a professor of molecular metabolism at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the study. While doctors usually visually estimate how healthy their patients are for their age, a tool like this could draw in much more data to make a better estimate, he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

FaceAge, the machine learning tool created by researchers at Mass General Brigham, found that study subjects with cancer appeared five years older than their chronological age. The biological age of people without cancer was typically close to their actual age. And those who were categorized as older were more likely to die, either from cancer or other causes.<\/p>\n

The researchers are not the first to find a link between facial and biological aging: A study in Denmark<\/a> found that subjects who looked older than their chronological age tended to die earlier than their twins, and other studies<\/a> have come to similar conclusions. <\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have developed an A.I. tool that they say can help assess a patient\u2019s health \u2014 and potentially guide their medical care.It\u2019s no secret that some people appear to age faster than others, especially after enduring stressful periods. But some scientists think a person\u2019s physical appearance could reveal more about them than meets the eye \u2014 down to the health of their tissues and cells, a concept known as \u201cbiological age.\u201dIn a new study, published Thursday in The Lancet Digital Health, researchers trained artificial intelligence to estimate the biological ages of adults with cancer by analyzing photos of their faces. Study participants with younger estimates tended to fare better after treatment than those deemed older by A.I., researchers at Mass General Brigham found.The findings suggest that people\u2019s biological age estimates are closely linked to their physical health, which could reflect their ability to survive certain treatments, the authors of the study said. And in the future, facial age analysis may become more useful than age alone in helping doctors make tough calls about their patients\u2019 treatment, they added.Face-based aging tools have \u201cextraordinary potential\u201d to help doctors quickly and inexpensively estimate how healthy their patients are, compared with existing tests, which use blood or saliva to measure chemical and molecular changes associated with aging, said William Mair, a professor of molecular metabolism at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the study. While doctors usually visually estimate how healthy their patients are for their age, a tool like this could draw in much more data to make a better estimate, he added.FaceAge, the machine learning tool created by researchers at Mass General Brigham, found that study subjects with cancer appeared five years older than their chronological age. The biological age of people without cancer was typically close to their actual age. And those who were categorized as older were more likely to die, either from cancer or other causes.The researchers are not the first to find a link between facial and biological aging: A study in Denmark found that subjects who looked older than their chronological age tended to die earlier than their twins, and other studies have come to similar conclusions. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27436,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27434"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27437,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27434\/revisions\/27437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}