If your teenage son or daughter is blighted by acne, they can take heart.

如果你那处在青春期的儿子女儿正饱受粉刺痤疮的摧残，那么是时候振作起来了。

For while they may feel greasy and unattractive at the moment, by middle age they will be the envy of their peers.

British research shows that acne sufferers’ cells have built-in protection against ageing that is likely to keep them looking younger than their years.

So while their former classmates bemoan the appearance of crow’s feet and other wrinkles and crinkles, their skin is more likely to maintain a youthful lustre.

The suggestion comes from King’s College London researchers who studied tiny structures called telomeres.

These are caps on the ends of chromosomes that protect the DNA in them from damage, much like caps on shoelaces prevent fraying. Thought of as tiny biological clocks, telomeres get shorter as we age and eventually become so short that cells die.

Previous studies have found men and women with long telomeres tend to be biologically younger than those of the same age but with shorter ones. All in all, telomeres are considered so important that the scientists who discovered them seven years ago were awarded a Nobel Prize for medicine.