This blog is a (much!) less-than-formal outlining of recent travels, events, happenings, thoughts and comments which tend to have some occupational relevance, but are on occasion nothing more than a means of passing the time while waiting for trains, planes & automobiles...

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

C'est la vie (ou la mort) ma femme fatale...

Looks like those romantic ballards about racing heartbeats might be scientifically based after all, as according to research carried out by the University of Valencia, just five minutes alone with an attractive woman can raise a man’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol to “dangerous levels” that “may be bad for the heart”.

The experiment, approved by the Faculty of Psychology’s ethical committee, involved 84 male students who were told to avoid alcohol and other stimulants for 24 hours, before being led into a room by one of the (male) scientists to solve a Sudoku puzzle. The researcher then departed on the pretext of getting another puzzle, leaving the unsuspecting student to sit alone in a room with a stranger.

Saliva samples were taken from the students to measure their cortisol levels which apparently remained the same when left with another male, but rose when left alone with an attractive female. The study added that this rise was heightened in men who believed the woman was “out of their league", and could even reach levels reportedly similar to that experienced by parachutists, an amount that can “bring on the possibility of heart attacks and strokes”.

As we now know that since pretty women are sociological gravediggers, surely our newspapers should be ablaze with headlines such as “Man dies in front of sexy woman”, “Ban these killer heels” and "French National Suicide Bid: instead of making it mandatory, they're banning the burka!"?

No comments:

Post a Comment