Facial appearance and metabolic health biomarkers in women

Abstract

facial appearance has been suggested to provide an honest cue of an individual's biological condition. However, there is little direct evidence that facial attractiveness reflects actual health. Here we tested if facial appearance is related with metabolic health biomarkers. Face photographs of 161 healthy, young women (M age = 28.59, SD age = 2.34) were assessed in terms of perceived attractiveness and health. Metabolic health was evaluated based on levels of markers of lipid and glucose metabolism balance, liver functioning, and inflammation. BMI, testosterone (T), and estradiol (E2) levels were controlled. Facial attractiveness, but not health, was negatively related with lipid profile components detrimental to health (total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides) but not with relatively protective for health HDL. When controlled for BMI, E2, and T, only the relationship between attractiveness and triglycerides remained significant. Facial appearance was unrelated with glucose metabolism, liver functioning, and inflammatory markers. The results suggest, that for healthy women of reproductive age, such measures as BMI and sex hormone levels may be better predictors of attractiveness, compared to measures of metabolic health. Markers of lipid, glucose homeostasis, liver functioning or low-grade inflammation may be rather indicators of future health, of lesser importance in mating context, thus only modestly reflected in facial appearance. Evolutionary theories propose that facial attractiveness is a cue of an individual's biological condition 1,2. Thus, facial attractiveness and individual characteristics, cross-culturally perceived as attractive, such as sexual dimorphism 3,4 , symmetry 5 , averageness 6 , carotenoid-linked skin colour 7 , and homogenous skin texture 8,9 are expected to develop and be displayed only in individuals with good health and high fertility, and to correlate with various measures of biological condition 10,11 , allowing for the best possible partner selection. Although perceived facial attractiveness is widely recognized as such honest cue of an individual's health 11-16 , there are relatively few studies testing this assumption directly. Furthermore, the results of these studies are ambiguous, indicating none 17 or positive correlation between perceived attractiveness and health measures, however inconsistent across sexes or the studied measures 7,18. Male facial attractiveness has been suggested to reflect the strength of antibody response to vaccination 19 and cytokine response after stimulation with lipopolysaccharide 20 , two direct measures of immune functioning. Furthermore, Gangestad et al. 21 showed that male facial attractiveness, symmetry and masculinity are negatively related with oxidative stress level, an important physiological measure of general body functioning, underlying many pathological processes and diseases. For women, the results are more ambiguous and, in fact, there is little direct evidence that female facial appearance signals immunity or health. Some research has ...

Pharyngeal Detection of Staphylococcus aureus as a Possible Factor Related to Disgust Sensitivity in Humans

“…Cortisol level has been shown to be negatively related with an individual's biological condition and mate value [48], thus one may expect that individuals with higher cortisol level (i.e., less attractive) should exhibit lower sexual disgust sensitivity, enabling lower choosiness and sexual permissiveness, increasing chances for reproduction. In women sexual disgust was also negatively related to higher body adiposity and positively with hsCRP level, two factors that may be related to a woman's lower attractiveness, perceived health, and mate value [48,49]. However, further investigation, using multiple hormonal measurements, is needed to verify the relationship between cortisol level and sexual disgust susceptibility in both sexes.…”

Do women’s morphological traits predict reproductive outcomes? A systematic review

“…Other authors, however, have observed no associations between women's ovarian hormone levels and body shape (Grillot et al, 2014;Jones et al, 2018;Rilling et al, 2009) or attractiveness (Jones et al, 2018;Rilling et al, 2009). Furthermore, associations with testosterone have sometimes been observed: facially attractive women may have lower testosterone levels overall or a low testosterone-to-oestradiol ratio (Probst et al, 2016;Wheatley et al, 2014;Żelaźniewicz et al, 2020). In another study, however, women with the lowest WHRs had high levels of both testosterone and oestradiol, but this was only the case for women in the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle (Mondragón-Ceballos et al, 2015).…”

“…Evidence for a link between women's morphological traits and adult hormone levels is mixed, however. Positive relationships with oestrogen levels have been reported for facial femininity (Law Smith et al, 2006), facial (Durante & Li, 2009;Law Smith et al, 2006, Żelaźniewicz et al, 2020 and bodily attractiveness (Durante & Li, 2009;Grillot et al, 2014), a more feminine body shape (Jasieńska et al, 2004) and right-hand but not left-hand 2D:4D (McIntyre et al, 2007). Other authors, however, have observed no associations between women's ovarian hormone levels and body shape (Grillot et al, 2014;Jones et al, 2018;Rilling et al, 2009) or attractiveness (Jones et al, 2018;Rilling et al, 2009).…”

What is a face worth? Facial attractiveness biases experience‐based monetary decision‐making

“…That is, whereas emotional expressions are observable communicative signals of a person's intentions, facial attractiveness is a fixed physical characteristic, and not a form of communication. Similarly, whereas perceptions of trustworthiness directly map on to perceptions of a person's intentions for enacting prosocial behaviours, facial attractiveness is commonly viewed as a signal of health and fertility (Foo, Simmons, & Rhodes, 2017;Żelaźniewicz, Nowak, Ła ˛cka, & Pawlowski, 2020), and not necessarily intentions. Thus, whereas emotional expressions and a person's perceived trustworthiness may be a valid basis for evaluating objective information, facial attractiveness is a seemingly irrelevant social cue for evaluating a partner's objective financial utility.…”