Health
AI tool scans faces to predict biological age and cancer survival
A simple selfie could hold hidden clues to one’s biological age — and even how long they’ll live.
That’s according to researchers from Mass General Brigham, who developed a deep-learning algorithm called FaceAge.
Using a photo of someone’s face, the artificial intelligence tool generates predictions of the subject’s biological age, which is the rate at which they are aging as opposed to their chronological age.
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FaceAge also predicts survival outcomes for people with cancer, according to a press release from MGB.
A simple selfie could hold hidden clues to one’s biological age — and even how long they’ll live. (iStock)
The AI tool was trained on 58,851 photos of “presumed healthy individuals from public datasets,” the release stated.
To test the tool’s accuracy, the researchers used it to analyze photos of 6,196 cancer patients taken before radiotherapy treatment.
Among the people with cancer, the tool generated a higher biological age that was about five years higher than their chronological age.
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The researchers also tested the tool’s ability to predict the life expectancy of 100 people receiving palliative care based on their photos, then compared it to 10 clinicians’ predictions. FaceAge was found to be more accurate than the clinicians’ predictions.
The researchers’ findings were published in The Lancet Digital Health.
Mass General Brigham developed a deep-learning algorithm called FaceAge, which generates predictions of the subject’s biological age from a photo. (Mass General Brigham)
“We can use artificial intelligence to estimate a person’s biological age from face pictures, and our study shows that information can be clinically meaningful,” said co-senior and corresponding author Hugo Aerts, PhD, director of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) program at Mass General Brigham, in the release.
“This work demonstrates that a photo like a simple selfie contains important information that could help to inform clinical decision-making and care plans for patients and clinicians,” he went on.
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“How old someone looks compared to their chronological age really matters — individuals with FaceAges that are younger than their chronological ages do significantly better after cancer therapy.”
The goal is for the tool to help eliminate any bias that may influence a doctor’s care decisions based on the perception of a patient’s appearance and age.
“While FaceAge may outperform clinicians in some survival predictions, it should augment human judgment, not override it.”
The researchers noted that more research is needed before the tool could be rolled out for clinical use.
Future studies will include different hospitals and cancer patients at various stages of the disease, according to the release. Researchers will also evaluate FaceAge’s ability to predict diseases, general health status and lifespan.
To test the tool’s accuracy, the researchers used it to analyze photos of 6,196 cancer patients taken before radiotherapy treatment. (iStock)
“This opens the door to a whole new realm of biomarker discovery from photographs, and its potential goes far beyond cancer care or predicting age,” said co-senior author Ray Mak, MD, a faculty member in the AIM program at Mass General Brigham, in the release.
“As we increasingly think of different chronic diseases as diseases of aging, it becomes even more important to be able to accurately predict an individual’s aging trajectory. I hope we can ultimately use this technology as an early detection system in a variety of applications, within a strong regulatory and ethical framework, to help save lives.”
ER physician on AI
Dr. Harvey Castro, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and national speaker on artificial intelligence based in Dallas, Texas, was not involved in FaceAge’s development but shared his comments on the tool.
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“As an emergency physician and AI futurist, I see both the promise and peril of AI tools like FaceAge,” he told Fox News Digital.
“What excites me is that FaceAge structures the clinical instinct we call the ‘eyeball test’ — a gut sense of how sick someone looks. Now, machine learning can quantify that assessment with surprising accuracy.”
Among the people with cancer, the tool generated a higher biological age that was about five years higher than their chronological age. (iStock)
Castro predicts that FaceAge could help doctors better personalize treatment plans or prioritize palliative care in oncology — “where resilience matters more than a birthdate.”
The doctor emphasized, however, that caution is key.
“AI models are only as good as the data they’re trained on,” Castro noted. “If the training data lacks diversity, we risk producing biased results.”
“While FaceAge may outperform clinicians in some survival predictions, it should augment human judgment, not override it.”
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Castro also cautioned about potential ethical concerns.
“Who owns the facial data? How is it stored? Do patients understand what’s being analyzed? These questions matter as much as the technology itself,” he said.
“AI can enhance our care — but it cannot replace the empathy, context and humanity that define medicine.” (iStock)
There is also a psychological impact of the tool, Castro noted.
“Being told you ‘look older’ than your age could influence treatment decisions or self-perception in ways we don’t yet fully understand,” he said.
“We need clear consent, data privacy and sensitivity. No one wants to be told they look older without context.”
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The bottom line, according to Castro, is that AI can enhance a doctor’s judgment, but cannot replace it.
“AI can enhance our care — but it cannot replace the empathy, context and humanity that define medicine.”
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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