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SFL Friday -- Your Cheatin' Allele 334

Wind, rain, riptides, impending massive hurricane -- it's perfect windsurfing weather yet again! And some of you want to move from this paradise?

So I came across this interesting article on why men cheat. It's not low self-esteem, poor interpersonal relationship skills, or even just plain lust; you can tell your spouses it's that pesky allele 334 gene:

[T]he findings by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm suggest that there could be some scientific roots to some men?s tendency to stray. Their study found that men who carry one or two copies of a gene variant called ?allele 334? were twice as likely to have had marital or relationship woes in the past year than those who don?t have it.

?The incidence of allele 334 was statistically linked to how strong a bond a man felt he had with his partner," lead researcher Hasse Walum said in a statement.

Leave it to those oversexed Swedes to spend all their time researching why men stray. They even got all scientific about it:

Allele 334 is found in four of 10 Swedish men, according to the researchers. It controls the production of vasopressin, a hormone found in mammals that had been linked to mate stability in prairie voles (a type of rodent) in earlier studies.

Walum said men who had the variation received low scores on the bonding test and were not as likely to be married as men who lacked it. Furthermore, 15 percent of men without the allele reported serious marital discord in the past year, compared to 34 percent of men who had two copies of the allele.

And the happiness of partners of those with and without the variant was equally consistent.

?Women married to men who carry one or two copies of allele 334 were, on average, less satisfied with their relationship than women married to men who didn't carry this allele,? Walum said in a statement.

David Duchovny, you can come out of rehab now, it's all in the genes baby.

Me, I'll be at Tobacco Road later tonight, Gibson Martini straight up in one hand, test kit and swab in the other.

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).