Bad marriage bad for women's hearts

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29529578/

updated 11:00 a.m. ET, Thurs., March. 5, 2009

An unhappy marriage can weigh heavily on anyone's heart, but apparently women may suffer the most ill health effects related to heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Women who felt depressed in strained marriages faced a boosted risk of hypertension, waistline obesity, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low levels of "good cholesterol" HDL – five factors of metabolic syndrome. Male spouses who felt similarly down in the dumps did not see similar risks.

"The gender difference is important because heart disease is the number-one killer of women as well as men, and we are still learning a lot about how relationship factors and emotional distress are related to heart disease," said Nancy Henry, a psychologist at the University of Utah. She conducted her research as part of a broader university study.

The larger study's data suggests that a history of divorce is linked to heart disease. Psychologists recruited 276 couples who had been married for an average of 20 years and did not already have some cardiovascular disease. The husbands and wives filled out several questionnaires and visited a university clinic to get their health checked.

"The immediate implication is that if you are interested in your cardiovascular risk – and we all should be because it is the leading killer for both genders – we should be concerned about not just traditional risk factors [such as blood pressure and cholesterol] but the quality of our emotional and family lives," said Tim Smith, another University of Utah psychologist heading the larger study.

Smith hypothesized that the hormonal effects of stress could lead to married women's growing waistlines, rising insulin resistance, and unhealthy blood pressure levels.