‘Ginger’ gene helps you look younger

Scientists have for the first time found that a gene known for producing red hair and pale skin may explain why some people appear more youthful than others.

It appears that variation in the gene, known as MC1R, is also related to differences in how old people look to other people — their perceived age, researchers said. But the gene comes in many different forms, or variants, many of which cause red hair — hence the nickname “the ginger gene”

People carrying particular MC1R variants in their DNA look, on average, almost two years older than they are, researchers said. “For the first time, a gene has been found that explains in part why some people look older and others younger for their age,” said Manfred Kayser from Erasmus MC University Medical Centre Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Earlier studies had shown that a person’s perceived age is influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors in roughly equal parts, researchers said.

Perceived age has also been shown to predict a person’s health and mortality, suggesting that the age we perceive a person to be from the appearance of their face might also be related in important ways to a person’s biological age and health, they said. Researchers searched the genomes of more than 2,600 elderly Dutch Europeans for DNA variants associated with differences in perceived facial age and wrinkling as estimated from digital facial images.