Again, Nigerians have been listed as some of the happiest people on earth. According to research, the more people in a country have a particular gene, the happier the nation will be.
According to a new study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies and first reported by Fiona Macrae, Science Editor for The Daily Mail UK, the genetic material that is Deoxy ribo-Nucleic Acid (DNA) in question, the FAAH gene, makes a protein that affects feelings of pleasure and pain. People with a particular version of it tend to be cheerier souls.
However, wealth and health were found to have little effect on happiness. The more people in a country who have a variety of the FAAH gene, the happier that nation tends to be, according to new research from Varna University, Bulgaria.
The researchers said what they found could help explain why some of the world’s poorest nations are also the happiest.
According to the study, Ghana, Nigeria, Mexico and Columbia all came out near the top in the happiness league and all three sported high rates of the gene.
In contrast, the peoples of Iraq, Jordan, Hong Kong, China were among the least likely to rate themselves as ‘very happy’ and also had the lowest levels of the gene.
The team from Bulgaria and Hong Kong looked at whether there was a link between levels of the FAAH gene in a population and number of people who said they were ‘very happy’ in global study of life satisfaction.
An earlier study of more than 65 countries published 2003 in the UK’s New Scientist magazine showed that the happiest people in the world live in Nigeria – and the least happy, in Romania.
People in Latin America, Western Europe and North America are happier than their counterparts in Eastern Europe and Russia.
According to the study, Nigeria has the highest percentage of happy people followed by Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Puerto Rico, while Russia, Armenia and Romania have the fewest.
But factors that make people happy may vary from one country to the next with personal success and self-expression being seen as the most important in the United States (U.S.), while in Japan, fulfilling the expectations of family and society is valued more highly.
The survey appears to confirm the old adage that money cannot buy happiness.
Credit: Guardian