Is Utah worth dying for?

This morning I received an email from a friend of mine, back in France, who alerted me on a recently published study by Perry Renshaw, a neuroscientist at the University of Utah.

What Mr Renshaw stressed is that despite ranking as America's happiest state, Utah also has a disproportionately high rates of suicide and associated mood disorders compared to the rest of the country. He said that Utah was the No. 1 state for antidepressant use, something I already knew.

This paradox generally attributed to gun use, low population density and the Mormon culture is, according to Renshaw, caused by altitude which impacts our brain chemistry by changing its levels of serotonin and dopamine, that help regulate our feelings of happiness. My immediate reaction is that Colorado, still higher than Utah, should be number one, but of course it has far less Mormons in its population, so in my view, the fault full rests on the state's religious culture.

Do I feel like hanging myself? Absolutely not, especially when skiing season begins just a few days from now!