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Say "I Do"
to health
Studies show marriage
can be good for your health- as long as it's happy one
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I got married two weeks ago. I did it for love, certainly, but it got
me thinking about the other rewards of marriage in particular,
the potential health benefits. Not surprisingly, marriage, the most
enduring and complicated of human relationships, can have a favorable
impact on one's emotional and physical well-being. But that's not guaranteed,
and it doesn't come for free.
There's a large body of medical literature showing that married people
tend to be healthier and live longer than singles. But newer research
adds an important caveat: the quality of the marriage matters. Marital
stress, logically enough, is not good for your health. In a study reviewed
in the Harvard Men's Health Watch just last month, 72 married couples
were ranked on a scale of marital stress and tracked for three years.
Those with high levels of stress were more likely to have an unhealthy
thickening of the heart's main pumping chamber. (Couples in unhappy
marriages, however, were able to lower their blood pressure by spending
less time with their spouses.) Other studies have shown that happily
married women have less blockage in their aortas, and that happily married
couples are less likely than unhappy couples to suffer from heart disease.
And that's just the start. People in happy marriages also have less
acute and chronic illness, better-functioning immune systems, fewer
fatal accidents, less susceptibility to alcohol abuse and lower rates
of depression, schizophrenia and suicide. In stable relationships, partners
help each other by encouraging good health habits, such as routine mammograms
and colonoscopies, and discouraging bad habits like smoking.
Someday marital stress may be as important an indicator of health as
cholesterol, weight or blood pressure. But like those other health indicators,
a marriage needs constant work if you are going to enjoy the benefits
or so I'm told. What do I know? I'm just getting started.

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