Age by photo
Chinese scientists have created a program that determines age by face
As the human body ages, not only its appearance, the work of organs and cells changes, but also the growth, shape of the body and skull. These changes occur for the reason that cartilage gradually shrinks, and bones become thinner as calcium is washed out, and the ratio of muscle mass to adipose tissue gradually changes.
The fastest and most noticeable of them is how our face changes during the transition from mature to senile age. Bioinformatician Jing-Dong Han from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai suggested that these changes can be used to accurately calculate the calendar and biological age of a person.
He tested this hypothesis by studying three hundred three-dimensional photographs of the faces of people aged 17 to 77 years, obtained in Shanghai using the increasingly popular 3dMDface camera. The same residents of the city agreed to take part in the experiment and allowed scientists to take blood samples, which were used as a classic indicator of a person's age.
In the figure from the Cell Research article, the numbers at the top are age intervals,
below is the number of examined men and women – VM.
Using these images, Han and his colleagues at the institute created a special heuristic program that learned to calculate the age of Shanghai residents by tracking small changes in the structure of their faces. According to scientists, for this algorithm, it was not the general appearance of the face that was important, but the location of special reference points, the relative distance between which and whose distribution is approximately the same for all people of the same age.
After a while, the program learned to calculate age almost accurately and identified several areas on the face, the shape of which changes most as you age. For example, the width of the mouth and nose, the distance between them noticeably increase in old age, and the corners of the eyes gradually "slide" down.
A big "bonus" to the creation of this program was that scientists were able to confirm that there really are two separate groups of people, one of which is aging faster, and the other is noticeably slower.
The difference in biological age between its representatives, as shown by the program, can exceed six years with the same calendar age of 40 years. This fact, according to the authors of the article, should be taken into account by physicians when prescribing medications and choosing therapy for the treatment of diseases.
Interestingly, blood was a less reliable indicator of age, as part of the biochemical signs of aging meant one thing for men and a completely different thing for women, which reduced the reliability of estimates. Han and his colleagues believe that their brainchild will help gerontologists study how the aging process proceeds in the most general terms, and find ways to combat it.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru01.04.2015