This AI Can Read Your Face and Reveal Hidden Health Risks – All from a Simple Selfie

New AI Apps Can Predict Your Health Just from a Selfie
A wave of innovative facial recognition tools is rapidly transforming selfies into powerful health analysis tools, with applications ranging from aging assessment to early disease detection.

1. FaceAge: A Digital Glimpse into Biological Age
Developed through a Harvard–Mass General Brigham collaboration, FaceAge uses facial photographs to estimate a person’s biological age—an indication of internal health that can differ markedly from one’s calendar age. Trained on tens of thousands of images from healthy individuals and applied to cancer patients, the system consistently rated patients as approximately five years older than their numerical age, and linked higher biological-age readings with poorer survival outcomes. Especially in palliative care, FaceAge significantly improved clinicians’ ability to predict short-term patient prognosis when used alongside standard clinical assessments.

2. Broadening the Scope: From Pain to Allergies
Beyond aging, AI-driven apps are emerging that claim to detect a range of conditions by analyzing facial features. These include tools aimed at identifying pain levels, seasonal allergies, or even neurological signs—mirroring human instincts that unconsciously assess health from facial cues.