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Scientists Discover Link Between Love And Suicide
An expansive, cross-cultural study undertaken by Harvard Medical and recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine has revealed a startling link between strong feelings of love and suicide.
"The findings were quite astonishing," said Dr Frank Mutts, a research professor with the university. "It's generally believed that love makes people happy, but this study shows that usually isn't the case."
Over the course of the 20-year-study, researchers followed the love lives of a thousand men and women between the ages of 18 and 55. Subjects filled out weekly reports on their romantic feelings, relationship status and sexual activity. Romantic encounters were discreetly recorded and studied by the researchers. Volunteers submitted to monthly electroencephalographic scans and MRIs, which were correlated against their survey responses and romantic activity level.
"What we found was, people feel happy when they're in love, but if they later feel like they're not in love anymore, they typically become more unhappy than before they were in love. Love appears to have a euphoric and addictive effect, similar to cocaine and heroin - it increases dopamine levels, builds up a dependency, and when the subject can't get any more love, he suffers a crash, often resulting in depression and suicide.
"Our research pretty well blows the roof off the unscientific bromide that 'it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved'."
Dr Mutts advises the general public to proceed cautiously in situations that may involve love until the link between love and suicide is better understood.
"In science, correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but it certainly implies it. And there is a very strong correlation between love and suicide, so we're advising individuals of all backgrounds to exercise caution in relationships in which love may be involved, or, if possible, to abstain from love for the time being.
"Personally, I haven't ever been in love, and I'm a research professor here at Harvard. Some would say that would make me uninformed, but that's why my team and I have done a ton of field research, observing romantic interactions in all kinds of settings and relationships. In clubs, in dance halls, in restaurants, in bowling alleys, in places of residence, in the bedroom, between men and women of the same and different races, you name it, we've observed, recorded and studied it, shared our findings with our peers and consulted them on any behaviors or other empirical phenomena we didn't understand - scientifically, and as unobtrusively as possible.
"I found the research very fulfilling, and I think my abstaining from love is a big part of that," concluded Dr Muttz.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Callysta wrote:
Feeling pretty bruised in the love department right now :/
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~~~ "Is crashing a marriage then playing yourself as if you're half your age going to make me happy?" ~~~ Find out on 26
*e-hug*
