According to a new study, women who have gone through a divorce are more likely to suffer from a coronary heart disease.
Recent statistics have shown that coronary heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. Risk factors that lead to this disease include diabetes, smoking and a high blood pressure.
The new study has take into account the known factors but also looked at others, such as signs of depression, occupation, income, alcohol use, weight and marital status.
The researchers found that people who go through multiple divorces have a higher risk of having a heart attack. However, the same study suggests that by remarrying, men’s health can improve, while women’s don’t.
Dr. Sarah Samaan, an expert in cardiology at Baylor Heart Hospital in Plano, Texas and one of the researchers involved in the study, explained that the recent findings should make doctors take into consideration other risk factors for heart disease in women, like divorce.
Dr. Samaan said that divorce in some cases leads to loneliness, which is one of the risk factors responsible for heart disease. But the new study reveals that women who divorced but remarried are still at risk.
In order to come to this conclusion, the study involved more than 16,000 adults, between the ages 45 to 65. The researchers followed these adults for approximately 18 years.
All the participants in the study had been married at least one, a third of them had been divorced at least once, while 19% of women and 14% of men were divorced at the time when the study started.
The study showed that 8% of the participants who had been divorced suffered a heart attack, compared to those who were still married.
After taking into consideration other risk factors that can influence the risk of heart attack, like psychological, physical and behavioral factors, the researchers found that women who had been divorced at least once were 24% more likely to suffer a heart attack, compared to women who were still married.
The study also revealed that even if women remarried after their first divorce, they still had a 35% risk of heart attack.
According to the findings, men who remarried had a lower risk of suffering from a heart disease. However, the men who had been divorced at least twice were 30% more likely to suffer a heart attack, the study suggested.
Image Source: theguardian
