Reading people’s faces can literally reveal what they are feeling inside.
Last month, researchers reported in a study published in the journal Tuberculosis Metabolism that mapping hot and cold spots on the face can provide clues to a person’s biological age, the rate at which cells age, and even detect signs of chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. .
According to ScienceNews, an analysis of nearly 3,000 Han Chinese (an indigenous ethnic group in China) between the ages of 21 and 88 showed that people with metabolic disorders, such as diabetes and fatty liver disease, compared to healthy people of the same age, had lower temperatures around their eyes. is higher Similarly, people with high blood pressure also had higher temperatures in their cheeks.
Jingdong Jackie Han“We can use the thermal image of the face to diagnose diseases with a relatively good accuracy of about 80 percent,” says a computational biologist from Peking University. The thermal pattern of the face indeed [اطلاعات] “It tells you more about your health.”
Hahn and his colleagues also found that the temperature of the nose decreases with age at a faster rate than other parts of the face. This shows that people with warmer noses have a lower thermal age. Meanwhile, the temperature around the eyes increases with age.
The thermal pattern of the face gives us good information about the state of health
According to Vadim Gladishev, a gerontologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, researchers have actually developed an innovative approach to estimating biological age based on thermal images of the face. This method provides an independent assessment of the rate of aging of an individual’s cells. By analyzing facial heat patterns, they can even detect symptoms of chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure with an accuracy of about 80%.
Han says the idea of ​​using facial temperature as an indicator of health has its roots in traditional Chinese medicine. Additionally, we’ve all experienced how fevers and infections can raise body temperature, including certain areas of the face. For example, parents often touch their child’s forehead to check for signs of illness.
Studies have also shown that core body temperature changes with age, metabolic status, and metabolic diseases. Facial heat maps can even show post-traumatic stress disorder. However, whether facial thermal patterns can be used to assess biological age and metabolic diseases has not been investigated.
When the researchers analyzed the participants’ blood samples, they realized why the heat map gave us so much information. For example, the increase in temperature around the eyes and cheeks was mainly due to increased cellular activities associated with inflammation, such as repairing damaged DNA and fighting infections.
A tool called ThermoFace that analyzes thermal images of the face shows promise in assessing biological age and diagnosing metabolic diseases. However, its effectiveness among different population groups is unclear.
It should be kept in mind that, apart from illness and age, other factors affect the temperature of the face. For example, a two-week daily jumping routine among study participants reduced the thermal age of their faces by 5 years, making them biologically (thermally) younger. Surprisingly, even eating yogurt seems to affect the thermal age of the face.
Gladishev points out that although disease risk is related to biological age, Thermophys’ tool cannot show cause and effect; But it may be able to alert doctors to potential issues that need further investigation.
“For goals,” says Gladishev [تØقیقاتی] Practical, very useful.” But whether or not facial heat map can be used to diagnose diseases in real environments is a difficult question that still has no answer.
