UofA study finds marriage can prevent heart attack, stroke
Jun 19, 2018, 4:01 AM | Updated: Jun 21, 2018, 1:54 pm
(Pexels photo)
(Pexels photo)
PHOENIX — Even though marriage may seem stressful at times, a new University of Arizona study found that it could actually be beneficial to your health.
No, really.
The study, led by the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Keele University in England, found that marriage could protect against developing a heart attack or stroke.
“Marital status appears to be a risk factor for heart disease and stroke and should be assessed when assessing cardiovascular risk,” Martha Gulati, a co-author of the study and the chair of the Department of Cardiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, said in a statement.
People who were divorced, widowed or never married had a 42 percent greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 16 percent greater risk of developing coronary artery heart disease than married couples, the study found.
How can marriage effect your health in a positive way, you may ask? Gulati said martial status could be tied to other other risk factors for heart disease, such as socioeconomic status, social support, depression and poor diet.
Marriage could also lead to an earlier recognition of and response to health problems, a better adherence to medication, a better financial security and better friendship networks.
Eighty percent of cardiovascular disease can also be attributed to well-known risk factors such as age, sex, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and diabetes, the study found.
“Our work suggests that marital status should be considered in patients with or at risk of developing cardiovascular disease and should be used alongside more traditional cardiac risk factors to identify those patients that may be at higher risk for future cardiovascular events,” said Mamas Mamas, the study’s senior author and professor at Keele University in England.
The authors used 34 studies that were published between 1963 and 2015 and involved more than 2 million people between the ages of 42 and 77 from North America, Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East and Asia to come to their conclusion.
