When it comes to a healthy heart, a happy marriage may be the key but when it comes to keeping weight off marriage doesn’t necessarily help, according to two separate studies.
The results of both studies relied heavily on gender.
The first study by the University of Rochester found that happily wedded people who undergo coronary bypass surgery are more than three times as likely to be alive 15 years later as their unmarried counterparts.
Conducted by the university’s School of Nursing, the study found good relationships show positive results.
“There is something in a good relationship that helps people stay on track,” lead author on the paper Professor Kathleen King said.
The marriage advantage affects woman and men differently. For men marriage in general is linked to higher survival rates and the more satisfying the marriage, the higher the rate of survival.
For women on the other hand, the quality of the relationship is even more important with satisfying unions increasing a woman’s survival rate almost fourfold.
“Wives need to feel satisfied in their relationships to reap a health dividend,” co-author Harry Reis, professor of psychology at the university, said.
“But the pay-off for marital bliss is even greater for women than for men.”
But this isn’t the only health issue which takes is measure by happily married couples. A separate study has found that weight gain throughout a marriage and following a divorce has differing effects on men and woman.
The study found that women are more likely to gain weight after they get married, while men are more likely to put on pounds after a divorce.
Study researcher Dmitry Tumin, a doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State University, said: “When you have these kinds of big life changes, your weight may go up.”
The study found that although people did not put on enough weight after marriage or divorce for it to have a significant impact on their health, a small percentage would be affected by health risks, especially for those aged more than 30.
The research, which is being presented at the American Sociological Association in Las Vegas, surveyed more than 10,000 US men and women on their weight and marital status and found that participant’s weight did not fluctuate much in the two-year period following a marriage or divorce.
But for about 10 to 15 percent, a large amount of weight was gained after a marriage, and 10 percent lost weight after a divorce.
The study also found that in a two-year period, women who married were 46 percent more likely to gain a large amount of weight than those unmarried, while men were not at increased risk for large weight gains after marriage.
Although data was not collected as to why women gained weight during marriage, professor of sociology at Ohio State University researcher Zhenchao Qian said it could come down to married women having a larger role around the house and having less time to exercise.
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