Remember that intoxicating feeling of true love - sweaty palms, a raging heart beat and butterflies ...
Remember that intoxicating feeling of true love - sweaty palms, a raging heart beat and butterflies in the stomach? Don't be surprised if you cannot. Top boffins at New York's Cornell University believe the powerful feelings associated with being in love last less than 30 months.
And as for Cupid firing the shots, researchers say it's down to nothing more romantic than a cocktail of three chemicals released by the brain in the early stages of courtship. The study found true love to be a potent mix of dopamine, phenylethylamine and oxytocin.
Scientists say the cocktail of chemical reactions will last just long enough for the couple to meet, mate and produce a child. And once those 30 months are up, couples can never recapture that first heady rapture and may go elsewhere.
Which could, they say, account for the erratic love lives of celebrities such as Darren Day, Nick Faldo and Will Carling.
"It's easy to become a serial romantic, falling in and out of love at the drop of a hat," said Professor Cindy Hazen who led the study. "After two years couples have either parted or decided that they are easy enough with each other to stay together. But that's it for true love."
Meanwhile, those who spurn true love and take to life as a sperm donor could be in for a little surprise. Health ministers have announced that they are looking at ways to give thousands of test-tube children the right to trace their natural parents. Spin Doctor fears there may be test-tube-test-case-trouble looming on the horizon.
Sleeping and boozing your way to the top
Women are increasingly using sex and alcohol to advance their careers a recent survey has revealed. 13% of young working women would be prepared to extend their loyalty to the boss as far as the bedroom to gain promotion while one in five said they would quite willingly do something morally or ethically wrong to secure that job.
Careers have become so important that 50% of women are jeopordising their health in favour of their jobs by skipping meals, not exercising and smoking and drinking in copious amounts. Rising alcohol consumption among women was also confirmed. Must be all the stress that comes from sleeping with your boss.
Living life by the riskometer
Smoking 40 cigarettes a day is as risky as playing one game of Russian Roulette and you are just as likely to die vacuuming as you are to be murdered, says a new 'riskometer' based on data from the British Medical Journal and the Health and Safety Executive. The risk of death of any given event is rated on an zero to eight scale with zero being totally safe and eight being certain death. At 0.3 a 100 mile rail journey is pretty much safe, although a lifetime of driving is disturbingly risky at 5.5, as high as the possibility of dying from an accidental fall. Suicide tops the scale at eight, just above Russian Roulette and 40 cigarettes a day. So, 10 a day at a rating of 6.7 doesn't sound quite as foreboding, or does it?
A rather tall tale
A rather eccentric scientist believes he has found an unusual cure for a collection of breathing and digestive problems. He has suggested giraffe spit could help treat conditions such as stomach ulcers and cystic fibrosis. The scientist behind the discovery collected his spit samples in a jam jar from the zoo. Spin Doctor wonders who were the unlucky guinea pigs in the trials for this wonder drug?
Addicted to stress
Senior managers are becoming so warped by pressures to work long hours that they need to be forced to go on holiday and do not know what to do with themselves when their work load eases off. A survey of 2,000 UK executives by Management Today revealed that nearly a third felt stressed if they were not constantly under pressure at work.
Meanwhile it seems one thing we all can't find enough of is time. A study by NOP has revealed families spend £5,000 each year on average paying others to do everyday tasks they once would have carried out themselves.
"We have to accept that we can't do everything," said stress expert Anne McCracken. "It's about getting a balance and taking control." Which may go some way to explain why researchers in the US claim some 40% of the world's population are suffering from sleep deprivation.
Bods at New York's Cornell University claim a full eight hours sleep is vital to mental health and will do you far more good than a work out in the gym.
"Sleep deprivation makes you stupid," said Professor James Maas. "It is not the hours you work, but the hours that you sleep," he declared.
Blessed are the churchgoers
Evidently all things are bright and beautiful if you're a regular church goer. Researchers in the US say that the health effects for those attending church could be as significant as giving up smoking.
A study of 4,000 'oldies' in North Carolina found those attending church were 46% less likely to die over a six-year period than people who went less often or not at all.
"Participating in religious services is associated with significant health benefits in elderly people," said Harold Koenig of the Duke University Medical Centre and lead author of the study.
Apparently elderly religious people have lower blood pressure, less depression and anxiety, stronger immune systems and cost the health care system less than people religiously involved. Amen to that!
