Bad hearts and bad marriages seem to go hand in hand, two studies suggest.
In the first study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm followed 300 women ages 30 to 65 who had been hospitalized for heart attacks or chest pain. After five years, the scientists learned that those women who reported serious marital stress were three times more likely to have another serious heart episode than those who reported little or no marital stress.
A bad marriage may also be related to high blood pressure, a major player in heart disease, suggests a second study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Over three years, researchers questioned more than 100 men and women with mild hypertension about their relationships. After reviewing blood pressure readings and records of the amount of time subjects spent with their spouses, the researchers found that blood pressure dropped in people with good marriages and rose in those with bad marriages.
