Smoking makes you look old: Study

New Delhi : If you are a heavy smoker then you are more likely to look older before you actually become old, says a study.

"We searched across thousands of traits to identify those that may be affected by how heavily someone smokes. As well as identifying several known adverse effects such as on lung health, we also identified an adverse effect of heavier smoking on facial aging," said study author Louise Millard from the University of Bristol in the UK.

The study was published in the journal PLOS Genetics.

To learn how smoking affects the people, the researchers divided them into two groups - the first contained people who had never smoked and the second included current and former smokers.

The analysis searched across 18,000 traits and apart from the new finding of more rapid facial aging, also identified several previously reported effects of smoking, confirming the method's effectiveness.

The known side effects of excessive smoking were obvious findings in the study, including worse lung function and a higher risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and skin cancer.

Besides emphasizing smoking's many dangers, the study also serves as proof of the principle that these data analysis tools can be used to identify the effects of other exposures of interest, such as alcohol intake.