Only a trick of the eye: here is why your ears and nose look bigger as you age

Most of you have probably noticed that as you age, your ears and nose look bigger than you're used to. Why does this happen and what causes it?

In fact, the nose and ears do not grow, but the appearance of these organs changes because collagen production decreases with age, writes Huff Post.

According to experts, the tip of the nose drops more, creating the illusion that it is getting longer, and a person notices more bony protrusions because there is a loss of some soft tissue or fat around the bones and cartilage.

"Over time, gravity takes its course, and also the collagen production goes down, which causes the elasticity of the skin to go down," explains Dr. Jacob Rinkinen, a board-certified plastic surgeon at Baptist Health Jacksonville.

So, yes, your nose may become a little longer as the tip sags, and the bump (a bony bump that some people have on the bridge of their nose) may become more prominent.

"With your nose, you have a bony structure, a cartilage structure, a muscle structure and a skin structure. As you age, your bone starts to resorb, so you lose some of that bony structure, and things start to move in the direction of gravity as a result," says Dr. Muneeb Shah, a dermatologist in New York City.

As for the ears, in fact, only one part of them changes over time: the lobes. Gravity affects the lobes over the years, and the soft tissues in them lose their tone and elasticity with age. This is especially true for people who have worn heavy earrings all their lives.

"While longer lobes may give the impression that your ears have grown, this is only a trick of the eye," says Dr. Jeffrey Marcus, chief of the Division of Plastic, Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine.

According to the doctor, by the age of 8-9, the ears are about 90% of the size of an adult, so many children look like they have large ears.

"So if you measure a 10-year-old’s ear and you measure their parents’ ears from top to bottom, they’re often the same size. Ears don’t grow the rest of [one’s] life. They just don’t," he explains.

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