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 Falling in love wreaks havoc with our hormones, causing gender-bender changes in both sexes. A woman who is dizzy with that crazy, blissful feeling of love becomes a testosterone-fueled beast, while her man becomes calm and docile as his testosterone levels actually decline, reports New Scientist magazine of research from the University of Pisa in Italy. "Men, in some way, had become more like women, and women had become like men," lead researcher Donatella Marazziti told New Scientist. "It's as if nature wants to eliminate what can be different in men and women, because it's important to survive at this stage." The study: The blood levels of several key hormones were measured in 12 men and 12 women who say they had fallen in love during the previous six months. Those lab results were then compared to the hormone levels of 24 additional volunteers who were either single or in stable, long-term relationships. The results: New Scientist reports that the men and women who had recently fallen in love both had considerably higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, indicating that courtship can be somewhat stressful. In addition, men who were in love had lower levels of the male sex hormone testosterone, which is linked to aggression and sex drive, than the men in the control group, while the women who were in love had higher levels of testosterone than the other women. Not everyone agrees that falling in love is responsible for the hormonal changes. Instead, some experts speculate that changing testosterone levels could be a result of increased sexual activity. Marazziti disagrees with this assessment since men and women in the control group were also sexually active. Here's the gotcha: The gender-bending hormonal changes don't last. Just as that crazy wonderful feeling of new love dims, so the testosterone levels return to normal in both sexes. When Marazziti tested those same 24 people two years later, their testosterone levels were no longer topsy-turvy. The study findings were reported in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. | |||||||||||||||||
