For your fertility’s sake, keep just five close friends!
- Women lacking confidants could see their monthly cycle disrupted
- Professor Dunbar claims the stress of casual acquaintances disrupt hormones
- He said you ‘see in primates’ that ‘casual acquaintances make you infertile’
- Men need to meet to maintain relationships but women can chat on the phone
Colin Fernandez Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail
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Having five close friends may boost a woman’s fertility, a leading expert claims.
Professor Robin Dunbar of Oxford University said that having a close-knit group of friends acts as a buffer against stress.
But those lacking group of close confidantes are more likely to see their monthly cycle disrupted.
And Professor Dunbar claimed the stress of maintaining too many casual acquaintances – rather than a core of five close friends – will also have a disruptive effect on a woman’s hormones.
Women who lack close confidantes are more likely to see their menstrual cycle destabilised
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Boston, Professor Dunbar said women attempting to have children will find having a circle of close friendships helpful.
The scientist, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford, said: ‘The size of relationships place huge stress on endocrinology [hormone levels]. It can destabilise the menstrual cycle and cause infertility.
‘Having too many casual acquaintances makes you infertile. You see it in primates.
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‘There is a suggestion that your core friends – the shoulder to cry on friends – can bolster your fertility.
‘A core of five best friends are crucial in buffering you against the stress of other people.
‘If you do not have these friends, you are more likely to have your menstrual cycle and endocrinology disrupted.’
Professor Dunbar, bases his theory on research in primates that found that female monkeys lacking a close ‘coalition’ of allies are more likely to be infertile.
Professor Dunbar is famous for coming up with the ‘Dunbar number’ – the theory that our brain limits us to a maximum of 150 friends.
Professor Dunbar says that a core of friends are critical to bolstering a woman’s ferility
And his latest research also suggests women can maintain their friendships by chatting with each other regularly by telephone.
By contrast men need to meet up – such as going to the pub or playing football – to maintain friendships.
Oxford researchers found a gender divide when it comes to friendships.
Professor Dunbar followed a group of 30 teenagers as they left home to start university or move home to pursue their careers.
He looked at why some friendships lasted, while others drifted apart.
Professor Dunbar said: ‘What determined whether they survived with girls was whether they made the effort to talk more to each other on the phone.
‘The telephone was only of any use to the girls though. Talking had absolutely no effect on boys’ relationships at all.
‘What held up their friendships was doing stuff together. Going to a football match, going to the pub for a drink, playing five a side. It was a very striking sex difference.
‘The caricature is if you move away to another town, girls will be on the phone or Facebook with each other to keep the relationship going.
‘With guys, it is ‘Out of sight out of mind’. They just find four more guys to go drinking with.’
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