KEY POINTS:
Smokers are being given the chance to peek into the future and see how a lifetime of cigarettes can wreak havoc with their looks as they age.
Researchers are trying to scare people off cigarettes by showing them computer-generated pictures of how much more old and haggard they might look if they carry on smoking.
Using a facial photo, the computer program produces two series of pictures of the person: one as they might look as an ageing smoker, the other as a non-smoker.
"Everyone wants to know what they will look like as a 75-year-old," said Dr Owen Carter, of the Centre for Behavioural Science in Cancer Control at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia.
"You're more interested in this [the computer-generated pictures] because it's what smoking is going to do to you personally. Someone who smokes a pack a day ages facially at 1.4 times the rate of someone who doesn't smoke.
"They get really deep creases in their jowls and crow's feet. Because of the constricted blood vessels in the epidermis, your face turns grey, starving the facial skin of oxygen," he said. Dr Carter outlined the research yesterday to the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference in Auckland, attended by more than 300 researchers, campaigners and support workers, including planners of the tobacco "end-game".
He argues that seeing these personalised images will increase the urgency of smokers to quit, decrease the likelihood of non-smokers starting - and provide a powerful new anti-smoking message for youngsters.
New Zealand's adult smoking rate has levelled off at around 23 per cent. Since smokers usually start in their teens, health authorities consider the nurturing of anti-tobacco attitudes in the young to be in the fight against tobacco addiction.
Dr Carter's group aims to test the computer software on 400 young people, showing half of them both the aged images of themselves and the rest just their non-smoking future face. Attitudes to smoking and future smoking intentions will be compared.
Researchers have shown computer-generated pictures of several young people to around 200 students to see if they find the smoking and non-smoking images different.
"The preliminary results are very encouraging," said Dr Carter. "Although the difference may not be that huge, people can spot it instantly."
He said the Western Australia Department of Health ran a television ad for three years in the 1980s depicting the ageing effect of smoking by changing a woman's face - but the ad was removed after a successful challenge by tobacco companies that it was an exaggerated health claim.
Heart Foundation medical director Dr Norman Sharpe said smoking accelerated ageing in the body. "It certainly affects the heart, the lungs and the circulation. There's good data to indicate smokers have accelerated ageing of the skin as well."
TWO-FACED
* A photo of your face is fed to a computer.
* It produces two series of pictures of what you will look like as you age: one as a smoker, the other as a non-smoker.
* The software was first developed in Canada to help find people who went missing as a child. A childhood picture is modified to reflect the person's advancing years.
