Stressful jobs could leave women unlucky in love

25 May Daily Telegraph

Researchers found that women who have higher levels of cortisol are rated as having less attractive faces by men than their more relaxed counterparts.It could be bad news for those who hold stressful positions and are looking to find love.

The affect is thought to occur because faces carry strong signals about a person’s health and fertility. Those who have high stress levels are generally less healthy.However, the researchers did find that the strength of a woman’s immune system did not affect her attractiveness to the opposite sex.

Previous studies in men have shown they are deemed to be more attractive if they have low stress levels and have strong immune systems.Dr Markus Rantala, a biologist at the University of Turku, in Finland, who led the study, said: “Perhaps, then, low levels of cortisol signal health in female faces.

“This would be consistent with many studies in humans that have found that stress has strong negative effect on health, including immune function, heart disease and susceptibility to cancer“An alternative explanation is that facial attractiveness signals reproductive potential, which is mediated partly by stress hormones.

”The scientists, whose research has been published the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, vaccinated 52 young Latvian women with an average age of 20 years old against the virus hepatitis B.