The Love Drug
Want a Canadian drug to make you healthier? Try the love drug. That’s the result of new research from the University of Windsor, which suggests love and happiness is the most successful Canada drug of them all to improve your overall health and well being.
Sociology professor Reza Nakhaie and associate Robert Arnold have made a study on the effects of “social capital” on overall health, and have found that good relationships – with friends, with family and with lovers – make for the best health drug of them all. On the one hand, it’s not available from Canadian pharmacies, but on the other, it’s probably a lot more affordable, with their study, the findings of which were published in the journal Social Science and Medicine recently, revealing that the good health effects of strong relationships were three times as powerful as the negative health effects of daily smoking.
“Nobody would think of trying to predict health status without using smoking,” Arnold says. “But it was three times as powerful as daily smoking.”
The researchers believe that the study shows that government policies aimed at family support should have more weight behind them, as it could actually cut the costs of health care. “It’s time that the older sociological tradition of giving more attention to love was brought back to the forefront,” Arnold believes. “Policies aimed at family support and family unification, for example through immigration policies (and) efforts to minimize the disruptions of divorce, appear important for the health of Canadians.” So there you have it – next time you want to feel better, don’t head for Canadian pharmacies, head home to Mum instead.
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