New Research Shows that Attractive People Have Better Immune Systems
By: Serach Nissim
Here’s another perk of being good looking.
New research has found that attractive people have better immune systems.
The study by the academic journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B was published on Wednesday. The researchers had a hunch that there would be some correlation between a person’s attractiveness and their level of immunity, as they theorized that humans might naturally and subconsciously seek out healthier mates.
As per the NY Post, the researchers recruited 80 men and 79 women at Texas Christian University, asking them to have photos taken of their faces without makeup and with a “neutral facial expression”. They subsequently drew 85 milliliters of blood for testing from each participant. Then, they got 492 other volunteers to rate the facial attractiveness of the participants based on their pictures. The researchers collated the ratings and cross-examined them with the results of the blood tests.
Indeed, the results of the study found that the volunteers rated the most attractive participants as the ones whose blood was found to have higher rates of phagocytosis , which is “the process by which specific white blood cells ingest foreign particles.” Medical research has previously established that “phagocytes play a central role in innate immunity by eliminating bacteria, fungi and malignant cells.”
“Features such as clear skin, prominent cheekbones, bright eyes and full, red lips have been deemed attractive throughout recorded human history,” the researchers wrote in the study. While facial attractiveness is “sometimes punctuated by idiosyncrasies,” the researchers said it is “often consistent across time and space”.
So, “perceptions of attractiveness may play a more important role in guiding the choice of partners with high-functioning immune systems,” the authors of the study said. “People who go out to a bar looking to talk to someone attractive are often dismissed as being shallow and told, ‘It is not all about looks.’ But they are really just following their instincts to find a high-quality mate,” noted Summer Mengelkoch, who led the research.
Still, she said that now that we have so many advances in medicine, infections are not as dangerous, and maybe we can be more lax in following our base instincts. “Infections are not as deadly as they used to be, so perhaps it’s OK if people lower their standards and start to give people who are less attractive a shot,” Mengelkoch said.
