Oct. 27, 2009 -- New research confirms what may be some women?s greatest fear: You may actually turn into your mother - at least when it comes to aging in your lower eyelids. The new findings were presented at the annual meeting of American Society of Plastic Surgeons in Seattle.

?We now have a way of knowing precisely where in the lower eyelids you will age and where you will age the most and we can plan the correction based on the prediction,? says study author Subhas Gupta, MD, a plastic surgeon in Loma Linda, Calif.

The researchers looked at 10 sets of similar-looking mom-daughter pairs via high-tech 3D computer modeling to determine which areas around the eye lost the greatest amounts of volume over time. A clear pattern emerged: Sagging and volume loss around the inner corners of the eye and lower eyelids in the mothers mimicked the early signs of lower eyelid aging in the daughters. The mom-and-daughter pairs ranged in age from 15 to 90. By and large, volume loss in this area began when women entered their 30s and was greater than previously estimated.

?If you come in when you are 30, we can tell you where you will have changes and quantify what you will need and where,? he says.

?The findings were surprisingly repetitive regardless of ethnicity and actual age difference between mothers and daughters,? he says.