Jojy Cheriyan MD,MPH-April01, 2014

A study of more than 3.5 million adults finds that people who are married have lower rates of heart diseases than singles, divorced or widowed people. Previous studies mostly compared married people to singles, and lacked information on divorced and widowed ones.

The study has been conducted by the Preventive Cardiology Department of New York University Langone Medical Center, New York. According to the researchers, Dr. Berger (a Preventive Cardiologist) and Dr. Alviar (Cardiology Fellow), this is the largest look at marriage and heart health. They assume that it might be because if someone is married they have a spouse who encourages them to take better care of themselves. This reinforces the idea that heart health can be affected by social as well as psychological factors, which has been proven by other studies in the past.

This particular study also found that this was true at any age, for women as well as men, and regardless of other heart disease risk factors such as diabetes or high cholesterol. The researchers looked not only the heart attacks but also a full range of heart diseases from clogged arteries and abdominal aneurysms to stroke risks and circulation problems in the legs.

The major findings of the study are:

• Married people had a 5% lower risk of any cardiovascular disease compared to single people. Widowed people had a 3% greater risk of it and divorced people, a 5% greater risk, compared to married folks.
•  Marriage seemed to do the most good for those under age 50; they had a 12% lower risk of heart-related disease than single people of their age.
• Smoking, a major heart risk, was highest among divorced people and lowest in widowed ones.

Drawbacks of the Study:

Though, this is a large observational study that depended on the questionnaires to participants, no causation or clear explanation could be found why married people should have lower rates of heart diseases. This is only an association, that needs further research to prove what metabolic changes or biochemical changes could occur due to marriage, divorce or single life. Researchers do not know how long the study participants were married or how recently they were divorced or became widowed.

The sample in this study also has some biases. 69 percent were married, 13 percent were widowed, and only 8.3 percent were single, and only 9 percent were divorced. Nearly two-thirds were female, and 80% were white. Obesity, which by itself a risk factor for heart disease, was most common among those single and divorced. Widowed women in the sample had high blood pressure, diabetes and inadequate exercise.

The study doesn't say about the impact of having children in married life, which is an important factor for long-lasting married life and heart health.

A previous study named Dallas Heart Study (2012) showed that women who had given birth to four or more children had almost two times higher risk of having more plaque and thickening of their arteries than women who had given birth to two or three children. The same study also reported that childless women or mothers of one child too showed a higher risk for heart diseases. It found a 1.9 times higher chance of plaque and 1.5 times increased likelihood of thickening of the arteries in childless women and mothers of one.

Take Home Message:

This study delivers a strong message that social factors and psychological stress do matter in heart healthy life.