Ladies, you’ll never guess what we heard – so apparently some scientists told this medical journal that gossiping is actually good for us. But keep it to yourselves.

The research actually showed that gossiping can feel as good as sex – well kind of. So these scientists in the University of Pavia discovered that talking shite with your friends releases oxytocin in our brains - the same hormone released during and after sex. Scientists tested the experiment with the help of 22 female students who were separated up into ‘two conversational groups’. One group, led by a paid actress, discussed the issue of unplanned pregnancy on campus, while the other group spoke among themselves after hearing another actress tell an emotional story about an injury which left her never able to play sport again. The results proved that the body’s stress hormone, cortisol, decreased in both cases, however the oxytocin levels were significantly higher in the group that was gossiping. “I work as a psychiatrist and I noticed that every time my colleagues and I gossiped, we felt closer together,” lead researcher, Dr Nataschia Brondino said of the study. “I started to wonder whether there was a biochemical cause for this feeling of closeness. “It serves a useful social function, brings people closer together than they would be if they were talking about some impersonal topic. And it can help us figure out who to trust, because we can hear information about people we don’t know from trusted sources.”