Cosmetic Surgeries Don't Improve Attractiveness, Study Finds

A new study has found that face-lifts don't increase a person's attractiveness but only make the person appear about three years younger than his/her actual age.

The study was based on assessment of attractiveness of people who got a cosmetic treatment before and after the surgery.

Facelift surgery or rhytidectomy is marketed as a procedure that will make people look younger by fixing problem areas such as deep creases below lower eyelids, loss of muscle tone in lower face and loose skin along with excess fat deposits.

"Patients come to us because they want to look younger. They want to look refreshed," said Dr. A. Joshua Zimm, of the Lenox Hill Hospital and Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Institute of North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System and lead author of the study. "We typically avoid telling patients, 'We're going to make you look X amount younger,"; he told Livescience.  "We don't want to create false or unrealistic expectations."

The study had a small sample size; just 49 patients aged 42 to 73 who had undergone a facial cosmetic surgery. The photos of these people were judged by a group of participants who then rated them on scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being attractive). No participant saw the before and after photos of the same person.

The study found that a facial surgery such as a brow-lift takes off about three years from a person's age. Most participants rated the photos between 4 and 6, indicating that peoples' attractiveness didn't improve post-surgery.

"It's a big deal that a study is presenting a negative finding," said Dr. Eric Swanson, a plastic surgeon in Leawood, Kan. Swanson isn't part of the current study but, had conducted a similar study in the past, reports The New York Times.

Dr. Zimm added that further research with a larger sample size will show whether cosmetic facial surgeries increase attractiveness.

The study is published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.