Love a bit of gossip? It might not be as bad as you think

Start searching our celeb section, flick through those magazines and feast your eyes on any reality TV show you fancy.

A new study has shown that reading a celebrity scandal story, or hearing about celebrity gossip, releases the same pleasure chemicals as winning the lottery. Researchers at King’s College, London scanned the brains of students while volunteers read news stories to them. The results found that hearing stories about celebrity misfortunes brought ‘feel-good’ chemicals to the front of the students’ brains. Even students who denied interest in the stories were contradicted by their brainwaves. Neurobiologist Adam Perkins said:

“Celebrities are particularly likely to be envied – when they fall from grace, we feel happy. “When a celebrity falls from grace, our brain’s reward centres activate, as if we witnessed the downfall of a successful rival in our own tribe.”

So enough of the guilty pleasures. You’re actually improving your mental health…