Marriage leads to better health for men, reports Harvard Men’s Health Watch
A recent report from the Framingham Offspring Study notes that married men had a 46% lower rate of death than unmarried men, even after taking into account major cardiovascular risk factors. In this study, the happiness of the marriage did not seem to influence the overall protective effect. In other studies, though, marital unhappiness and stress were linked with high blood pressure (hypertension), an important cardiac risk factor. Over time, marital stress is associated with thickening of the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber. On the flip side, a supportive marriage is associated with improved survival among men who develop heart failure.
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