Secret of youth? Old friends can help make us look years younger

They may think that picking girls more than 30 years their junior helps them stay young.

But parading alongside such fresh-faced beauties actually makes the likes of Ronnie Wood and Hugh Hefner look older than they are, scientists have revealed.

When one person is much younger than those around them, observers are more likely to exaggerate the age gap, they say.

Age gap: Ana Araujo is 32 years younger than partner Ronnie Wood

Researchers discovered a person’s perceived age varies depending on who they are with. The untrained eye will pick out the face of someone who is clearly a different age to the rest of the group and exaggerate the gap.

So if they are a few years older they will be perceived as a lot older and if they are slightly younger they will be perceived as much younger, said the study – bad news for celebrities such as 62-year-old Wood, whose girlfriend Ana Araujo is 32 years his junior, and Bernie Ecclestone, 80, whose new love is almost 50 years younger than him.

Researchers carried out tests to see how people estimate the age of others.

If they see a person on their own or in a group where everyone is a similar age then most observers are generally able to estimate that person’s age.

However, if most of a group are old and one person is young, those trying to guess the individual’s age are ‘consistently wrong’ said the research.

In one test, volunteers were shown photos of elderly people followed by one of a middle-aged person and asked to guess that person’s age. Most estimated it as ‘substantially younger’ than it was.

The study, by scientists from Jena University in Germany and reported in the journal Vision Research, said: ‘The founder of the Playboy magazine might be surprised by these findings.

‘He prefers to surround himself with young women, not knowing that they make him look much older.’