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A team of doctors and researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have gathered an interesting new take on tobacco and cigarettes by comparing pairs of twins in which one of them smokes. They attended the Twins Days festival in Twinsburg, Ohio and met 79 pairs of twins in which either only one twin smoked or where one of the twins had started smoking at least 5 years before the other did. Professional photographers then took their portraits and a panel of judges were asked to evaluate the twins’ faces and rate their signs of aging.

The judges gave the twins scores, but you can see the results for yourself. The smoking twins, in comparison to their siblings that did not smoke or had smoked for a shorter period of time, received worse scores for wrinkled and baggy eyes, baggy cheeks, nose wrinkles, jowls and lip discoloration.

Smoking can be a controversial issue. On the one hand you’ve got the tobacco lobby and enthusiastic fans of smoking who defend their habit, and on the other you’ve got plenty of public and private institutions amassing a growing pile of evidence that smoking tobacco is bad for your health.

Smoking is a personal decision. Some people enjoy it enough that they don’t mind the numerous health risks, while others are simply too addicted to quit. But if you haven’t started smoking, think twice before you do!

Source: journals.lww.com (Facial Changes Caused by Smoking: A Comparison between Smoking and Nonsmoking Identical Twins – Okada, Haruko C. M.D.; Alleyne, Brendan B.S.; Varghai, Kaveh; Kinder, Kimberly M.D.; Guyuron, Bahman M.D.)

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