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| Strained marriages hurt women’s hearts |
| Health |
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A new study, as yet unpublished, suggests that a strained marriage is more likely to raise the risk factors for heart disease in wives than in husbands, the Globe and Mail reported.
University of Utah psychology professor Tim Smith, who co-authored the study, said his team’s findings show that the emotional stress of a bad marriage “seems to have about as much of an influence as does being a couch potato” in causing heart disease. Smith’s research team assessed the answers given to a questionnaire completed by 276 couples aged 40 to 70 who had been married an average of 20 years. The participants were asked to identify good and bad aspects of their marriages and were probed for signs of depression. They also underwent medical testing that included their waist measurements, blood pressure, and cholesterol, glucose and triglyceride levels. The objective was to evaluate the five symptoms of what is known as metabolic syndrome, which rates a person’s risk of developing heart disease. What researchers found was that while husbands and wives alike reported symptoms of depression, the women showed more signs of metabolic syndrome than did the men. Smith said he is not claiming women in a strained marriage would necessarily find their health improve if they were to leave their spouses. “Satisfying relationships are their own reward,” he said. “But [heart health] is another benefit to be paying attention to them.” |
