People with heart disease have better long-term survival odds when they are married, a recent US study suggests. Married patients also had fewer heart risk factors like high blood pressure and were more likely to be on heart medications, compared to divorced, widowed and never-married peers, who were up to 71 percent more likely to die during a follow-up of several years.
Senior study author Dr. Arshed Quyyumi of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta told Reuters in a phone interview: “We measured biomarkers including cholesterol, high blood pressure and presence of diabetes. True, unmarried patients are dying more because they have these conditions. But just the marital status in and of itself is an independent risk factor.”
Quyyumi and his team looked at the relationship between marital status and incidence of cardiovascular death, heart attack and death from any cause in 6,051 men and women who had their clogged heart arteries cleared at Emory Healthcare hospitals between 2003 and 2015.
Follow-up ranged from two to 6.7 years, averaging about three and a half years. Overall, the unmarried patients were 1.45 times as likely as the married patients to experience a cardiovascular event leading to death, 1.52 times as likely to have a heart attack and 1.24 times as likely to die from any cause during the follow-up period. The study was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Widows fared the worst, with a 71 percent higher likelihood of death, while divorced, separated and never-married patients had about 40 percent higher odds for those events.
Past research has found that being married is associated with better health and survival overall, the study team notes, although the mechanisms involved need further study. People with a spouse tend to have a greater purpose in life and are more likely to take responsibility for their health through diet, exercise and medication adherence, Quyyumi noted. But when a significant other is no longer in the picture, compliance starts to slip.
A lack of social support has been thought to worsen outcomes in cardiac patients after divorce, Quyyumi said, suggesting that the emotional and financial stress may also play a role.
