Researchers have found that your complexion affects how healthy, and therefore how attractive, you appear. What’s more, your diet may be crucial to achieving the most desirable complexion.

Using specialist computer software, study participants were asked to manipulate the skin color of male and female Caucasian faces to make them look as healthy as possible. They chose to increase the rosiness, yellowness and brightness of the skin.

Skin that is slightly flushed with blood and full of oxygen suggests a strong heart and lungs, supporting the study's findings that rosier skin appeared healthy. Smokers and people with diabetes or heart disease have fewer blood vessels in their skin, and so skin would appear less rosy.

But the preference for more golden or 'yellow-toned' skin as healthier might be explained by the 'carotenoid pigments' obtained from vegetables in the diet. These plant pigments are powerful antioxidants that soak up dangerous compounds produced when your body combats disease. They are also important for your immune and reproductive systems and may help prevent cancer.

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  Eurekalert November 16, 2009