When You Were Young.

I found a remarkable news story on the BBC's website today that has a significant importance to me. Despite coming to the end of my teens, I still look like I should be half way through them. Which is fine now that I have my ID, and at the end of day, millions of people spend billions of Pounds on looking young, so who am I to complain when I get Garnier's best face cream for absolutely sod all.

The story goes that some Danish scientist has come up with the theory that people who look young for their age live longer.

Now I'm not being ignorant here, but doesn't that kind of go without saying?

Professor Kaare Christensen's (not exactly the most stereotypical Scandinavian surname) research consisted of taking twins and seeing which one died first (nice...). The results showed that it was generally the older-looking twin that died first. Obviously the subjects were all in their twilight years (70's/80's, and no they weren't vampires/werewolves with allergic reactions to shirts).

Crude as it may sound, apparently there's some science behind this. Each human is blessed with DNA strands called telomeres, and generally, people who have younger looking faces have longer telomeres. Shorter telomeres are linked to rapid ageing and lots of diseases. Interesting stuff, indeed I for one was simply jumping around at this news. To have been born with Indiana Jones' Holy Grail (not Dan Brown's one which is just some triangles) and potentially have a longer life is nothing short of b-e-a-utiful.

Then you remember the Americans are killing the ice-caps and I probably won't reach my 50th birthday because my house will be underwater as part of some kind of 'New Atlantis'. And having a face as fresh as Joe McElderry's ain't gonna save you from Mother Nature.