Bones to Blame for Looking Older
Women Experience Facial Bone Loss Sooner Than Men

Blame your bones if you think you look older. The shrinking of facial bones plays a surprisingly significant part in facial aging, according to a study presented today at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery 2005 conference in Chicago.

“Many people believe that only gravity creates wrinkles; however, we have discovered the loss of volume in the face and changes in bone structure also contribute to making us look older,” said David Kahn, MD, ASPS Member Surgeon and co-author of the study. “As we age, not only do we lose fat in our faces but our bones actually change in contour, often making us look older than we feel.”

According to the study, facial bones remodel themselves with time, dissolving, shrinking and leaving empty space. In addition, people lose skin elasticity with age. As bones shrink, the skin cannot tighten around the skeleton causing drooping and wrinkles that age the face.

The study also found that women had a significant decrease in facial bone volume at a younger age than men, causing women to see the signs of aging sooner. According to Dr. Kahn, this earlier change in bone structure may be why many women seek facial cosmetic enhancement at a younger age than men.

“Our findings lead us to believe soft tissue augmentation will play an even greater part in facial rejuvenation in the future,” said Dr. Kahn. “By using fillers, along with other cosmetic plastic surgery techniques such as forehead lifts and soft tissue repositioning, plastic surgeons can recreate volume loss caused by dissolving or shrinking bone and lift the skin to create better, more refined results for patients.”

In this study, plastic surgeons studied the computed tomography (CT) scans of 30 female and 30 male patients. The female and male patients equally fell into three age categories: 25 to 44 years old, 45 to 64 years old and older than 65.

More than 114,000 facelifts and nearly 55,000 forehead lifts were performed in 2004, according to ASPS statistics. The majority of these procedures were performed on women.

Reprinted with permission from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Web site.

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