Money may not buy you happiness, but according to new research,
genetics might be able to … if you’re a woman. A new study has
isolated a gene that researchers believe is related to happiness
in women. Unfortunately for the other half of the population,
this doesn’t hold for men. Researchers from the University of
South Florida, Columbia University and the National Institutes
of Health found that a type of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA)
gene was connected to higher levels of self-reported happiness
in women. The study, published this month in the journal Neuro-
Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, looked at the DNA of
193 women and 152 men, reported Fox News. Researchers then
compared these results to the participants’ levels of self-
reported happiness, controlling for factors such as age, gender,
race, income, marital status, self-esteem and physical health.
Women with at least one copy of the low-expression version of
the MAOA gene reported significantly higher levels of happiness
than women without t