Divorce shortens life

There is no comfort in this world, says one of the wise, a research review showed that married people, despite all the pressure and responsibility that marriage puts on them, may be less likely to suffer from heart disease or die from heart attacks or strokes compared to those who live without marriage.
Researchers examined data from 34 previous studies involving more than two million people.

Overall, the researchers found that adults who are divorced, widowed, or never married were 42 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 16 percent more likely to develop coronary artery disease, compared to married people.
Unmarried people were also 43 percent more likely to die of heart disease and 55 percent more likely to die of stroke, the researchers reported in the Journal of the Heart.
The research is not an experiment designed to prove whether marriage is good for heart health, but there are many reasons why marriage may be beneficial from a preventive point of view, including financial stability and social support, said lead study author Mamas Mamas from Britain's University of Kiel.
"It is known, for example, that patients are more likely to take important medications after a heart attack or stroke if they are married, perhaps because of partner stress," he added by email. "Likewise, they are more likely to participate in rehabilitation that improves outcomes after strokes or heart attacks."
He added that having a partner may also help patients recognize early symptoms of heart disease or the onset of heart attacks.
However, the researchers noted, marriage is not the biggest predictor of heart disease, as known factors such as age, gender, high support pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and diabetes account for about 80 percent of the risk of heart disease.
All the studies included in the latest research were published between 1963 and 2015 and the participants' ages ranged between 42 and 77 years and they were from Europe, Scandinavia, North America, the Middle East and Asia.
The study found that divorce was linked to a 33 percent increase in deaths from heart disease and an increased risk of death from strokes. Also, men and women who have experienced divorce are 35 percent more likely to develop heart disease than those who are married.