A study carried out at the university of St. Andrews, Scotland, found that women who were judged to be attractive tended to have higher levels of oestrogen in their urine than women who were not judged to be attractive. Such features as large eyes and full lips do seem to be linked to higher levels of the female hormone and higher fertility.

Marian Smith and her team took photos of 56 female students. They were all aged 18-24. The team took urine samples from the 56 students at exactly the same point of their menstrual cycles.

29 people (14 males and 15 females) were then asked to rate the pictures for attractiveness and health. They found a direct link between high levels of oestrogen and higher judged levels of attractiveness.

The higher a woman’s levels of oestrogen the less the bones on her face grow (as well as her chin and nose). The more oestrogen a woman has the fuller her lips are, the more fat she has on her cheeks, hips and buttocks.

You can read about this study in this weeks Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences.

The more oestrogen a women has the healthier and more fertile she tends to be.

Mariam Smith said that people have speculated for many years that women with more attractive and healthy looking faces have higher oestrogen.

The male hormone, testosterone makes the jawbone and eyebrow ridges become more prominent. Testosterone also makes men have facial hair and larger faces than women.

Miriam Smith says that women are effectively advertising their general fertility with their faces. Men prefer feminine women’s faces. It makes sense as far as evolution is concerned, she says. Because those faces belong to women who are more likely to have more babies.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today