Facial cosmetic surgery takes about 3 years off a person's age

People usually say they get facial cosmetic surgery to look younger and more attractive, but Canadian researchers say most look about three years younger. Dr. Joshua Zimm of the University of Toronto School of Medicine and currently at Lenox Hill Hospital and Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Institute in New York and colleagues said photographs of 49 patients who underwent aesthetic facial surgery from July 4, 2006, to July 22, 2010, were used to show 50 blinded raters, each of whom was randomly assigned to four groups. Raters were asked to estimate the age of each patient in the photographs presented and to rate the patient's attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Facial Plastic Surgery, found the mean overall years saved following aesthetic facial surgery was 3.1 years. There was a small but insignificant increase in attractiveness scores in post-procedural photographs relative to pre-procedural photographs.