NY TIMES - Apr 12 - In 1858, a British epidemiologist William Farr set out to study what he called the “conjugal condition” of the people of France. He divided the adult population into three distinct categories: the “married,” the “celibate,” and the “widowed”. Farr analyzed the relative mortality rates of the three groups at various ages. The study showed that the unmarried died from disease in undue proportion to their married counterparts. And the widowed, Farr found, fared worst of all. Married people, the data seemed to show, lived longer, healthier lives. In the 150 years since Farr’s work, scientists have continued to document the “marriage advantage”: the fact that married people, on average, appear to be healthier and live longer than unmarried people. But one recent study suggests that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit and that single people who have never married have better health than those who married and then divorced. Some of today’s most interesting research on the relationship between marriage and health is being led by a pair of researchers at Ohio State University College of Medicine. The duo, Ronald Glaser and Jan Kiecolt-Glaser, are also, fittingly, married to each other. Published in 2005 in The Archives of General Psychiatry, the Glasers’ findings help explain epidemiological data showing that couples in troubled marriages appear to be more susceptible to illness than happier couples. The results may also have practical relevance for surgical patients, for instance, waiting for incisions to heal. But most important, the study offered compelling evidence that a hostile fight with your husband or wife isn’t just bad for your relationship. It can have a profound toll on your body. Last year, The Journal of Health and Social Behavior published a study tracking the marital history and health of 9,000 men and women in their 50s and 60s. The study found that when the married people became single again — either by divorce or because of the death of a spouse — they suffered a decline in physical health from which they never fully recovered. These men and women had 20% more chronic health issues, like heart disease and diabetes, than those who were still married to their first husband or wife by middle age. The divorced and widowed also had aged less gracefully, reporting more problems going up and down stairs or walking longer distances. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES
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