Deep forehead wrinkles may signal a higher risk for ...

1 Deep forehead wrinkles may signal a higherrisk for cardiovascular mortality26 August 2018 Credit: CC0 Public DomainAre wrinkles just an inevitable consequence ofageing, or could they signal something moresinister? According to research presented in munich todayat the ESC congress 2018 , the annual conferenceof the european society of cardiology , people whohave lots of deep forehead wrinkles , more than istypical for their age, may have a higher risk ofdying of cardiovascular disease (CVD).Assessing brow wrinkles could be an easy, low-cost way to identify people in a high-risk categoryfor CVD."You can't see or feel risk factors like highcholesterol or hypertension," says study authorYolande Esquirol, associate professor ofoccupational health at the Centre HospitalierUniversitaire de Toulouse in France. "We exploredforehead wrinkles as a marker because it's sosimple and visual.

2 Just looking at a person's facecould sound an alarm, then we could give adviceto lower risk."That advice could include straightforward lifestylechanges like getting more exercise or eatinghealthier food. "Of course, if you have a person witha potential cardiovascular risk, you have to checkclassical risk factors like blood pressure as well aslipid and blood glucose levels, but you couldalready share some recommendations on lifestylefactors," Dr. Esquirol points of heart disease increases as people age, butlifestyle and medical interventions can mitigate thedanger. The challenge is in identifying high-riskpatients early enough to make a to the study authors, previous researchhas analysed different visible signs of ageing to seeif they can presage cardiovascular disease. In priorstudies, crow's feet showed no relationship withcardiovascular risk but these tiny wrinkles near theeyes are a consequence not just of age but also offacial movement.

3 A link has been detected betweenmale-pattern baldness, earlobe creases,xanthelasma (pockets of cholesterol under the skin)and a higher risk of heart disease, but not with anincreased risk of actually authors of the current prospective studyinvestigated a different visible marker ofage horizontal forehead wrinkles to see if they hadany value in assessing cardiovascular risk in agroup of 3,200 working adults. Participants, whowere all healthy and were aged 32, 42, 52 and 62at the beginning of the study, were examined byphysicians who assigned scores depending on thenumber and depth of wrinkles on their foreheads. Ascore of zero meant no wrinkles while a score ofthree meant "numerous deep wrinkles ."The study participants were followed for 20 years,during which time 233 died of various causes. Ofthese, had score two and three had score one wrinkles and had nowrinkles.

4 1 / 3 The authors found that people with wrinkle score ofone had a slightly higher risk of dying ofcardiovascular disease than people with nowrinkles. Those who had wrinkle scores of two andthree had almost 10 times the risk of dyingcompared with people who had wrinkle scores ofzero, after adjustments for age, gender, education,smoking status, blood pressure, heart rate,diabetes and lipid levels,"The higher your wrinkle score, the more yourcardiovascular mortality risk increases," explainsDr. in your brow are not a better method ofevaluating cardiovascular risk than existingmethods, such as blood pressure and lipid profiles,but they could raise a red flag earlier, at a researchers don't yet know the reason for therelationship, which persisted even when factors likejob strain were taken into account, but theorise thatit could have to do with atherosclerosis, orhardening of the arteries due to plaque is a major contributor to heartattacks and other cardiovascular in collagen protein and oxidative stressseem to play a part both in atherosclerosis andwrinkles.

5 Also, blood vessels in the forehead are sosmall they may be more sensitive to plaque build-up meaning wrinkles could one of the early signs ofvessel ageing." forehead wrinkles may be a marker ofatherosclerosis," says Dr. Esquirol."This is the first time a link has been establishedbetween cardiovascular risk and forehead wrinklesso the findings do need to be confirmed in futurestudies," cautions Dr. Esquirol, "but the practicecould be used now in physicians' offices andclinics.""It doesn't cost anything and there is no risk,"concluded Dr. Esquirol. More information: The abstract "Foreheadwrinkles and risk of all-cause and cardiovascularmortality over 20-year follow-up in workingpopulation: VISAT study" will be presented duringPoster session 2: Risk assessment on Sunday 26 August from 08:30 to 12:30 in the Poster , M and Tybjaerg-Hansen, A.

6 Visibleaging signs as risk markers for ischemic heartdisease: Epidemiology, pathogenesis and clinicalimplications. Ageing Research Reviews. 2016; 25:24-41. Provided by european society of cardiology 2 / 3 APA citation: Deep forehead wrinkles may signal a higher risk for cardiovascular mortality ( 2018 , August26) retrieved 29 May 2019 from document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, nopart may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes by TCPDF ( ) 3 / 3