The Executive Health Plan: stretch genes are the secret to happiness

If you start every day down in the dumps, it could be that you hate your job, your spouse, your commute to work or your life in general.

Or it could be that, for you, the 5-HTT gene is a bit shorter than its optimum length.

Researchers at The London School of Economics (don't bother to ask - we don't know why LSE is conducting genetic research either: after all, it's surrounded by medical schools of the highest quality) studied some 2,500 subjects and found that each had two strands of the 5-HTT gene. Two long strands meant a predisposition to happiness, two short strands, a predisposition to being less happy. They were careful not to say "miserable." One long and one short strand, produced a result somewhere in between.

In fact the questions were not specifically about "happiness" but about "satisfaction" and "dissatisfaction" with life.

The research is being published in full in the Journal of Human Genetics. It is not clear whether the questions also looked at ambition.

However, the 5-HTT gene is related to the production of serotonin.

The research is lead by Behavioural economist Jan-Emmanuel De Neve. That might explain why LSE is involved: the UK Government has announced a campaign to find out what makes people happy and try to deliver that.

But, serotonin is generally better made than delivered and so ways of encouraging its production are to be preferred.

Even so, having improved happiness for many by increasing the standing power of men with Viagra and other drugs, the pharmaceutical industry has next turned its attention to the much bigger issue of premature ejaculation. Research has shown that a muscle that controls ejaculation can be targeted with a specific form and dose of serotonin.

Joining that research to the LSE research, it seems to come back to the generally accepted reason for much PE: low self esteem.

And that brings us back, interestingly, to the crux of the nature or nurture argument that rages in relation to management capability - and tendencies to unlawful or risky behaviour.

Which is why the question of ambition is important: that relates to the research of Maslow who defined how personality moves through a series of defined stages. One of those is satisfaction - which, in loose terms - resembles the "happiness" referred to in the research.