The eyes have it.

If you want to look years younger than your real age, focus on the area around your eyes. Why? This is where people get visual clues about your age and level of fatigue, HealthDay News reports of a study from a Boston plastic surgeon, who is also an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

The study: Forty-seven college students--15 men and 32 women--from the Boston area viewed photographs of 48 older people on a computer monitor. The monitor analyzed reflections from the volunteers' eyes to determine where they were looking. The volunteers were asked to rate either the age or fatigue level of those in the photos.

The results: To estimate the age of the people in the photographs, the students looked at the eye region 46 percent of the time, followed by the nose (19 percent), forehead (13 percent) and the area between the eyebrows (11 percent). The numbers were similar when the students were trying to figure out how tired the people in the photos appeared.

Even though the eyes constitute just 21 percent of the human face, they reveal much. "There is a lot going on around the eyes," study leader Dr. Peter A. D. Rubin told HealthDay News. "For one thing, eyelids are the thinnest skin on the body, making swelling more prominent." In addition, the area around the eyes undergo many changes during aging and suffer from significant sun damage. "Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder," Rubin added. "It's also in the eye of the beholdee."

Why is this important? Rubin says people who seek cosmetic surgery to look younger don't always get treatment where they most need it. "They want to look younger and less tired, but if you look to see what's being offered them, it's often not things around the eyes," he told HealthDay News.

The study findings were published in the journal Ophthalmology.