As if a failed marriage isn’t bad enough for the heart: new research suggests that divorce increases your risk of heart attack, even if you remarry.
The new findings out of Duke University don’t bode well for women. The American scientists say that the link between divorce and poor heart health was stronger in women, even if they remarried.
“Divorce is a major stressor, and we have long known that people who are divorced suffer more health consequences,” Dr. Matthew Dupre, the study’s lead author, said.
“But this is one of the first studies to look at the cumulative effect of divorce over a long period. We found that it can have a lasting imprint on people’s health,” he explained.
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The researchers studied nearly 16,000 U.S. adults over the course of two decades. Across the board, those who got divorced faced a higher risk of heart attack than their counterparts who stuck to their vows.
The group was between 45 to 80 years old and had been married at least once. They were interviewed every two years from 1992 to 2010 about their marital status and their health – about one-third got divorced at least once during the 18-year study.
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Keep in mind: men are typically at a higher risk of heart attack but the study warns that it was female divorcees that were affected most.
Women who participated in the study and got divorced once had a 24 per cent greater risk of heart attack compared to their peers who stayed married. If they had multiple divorces in their lifetime, the number jumped to 77 per cent.
Men faced only a 10 per cent extra risk for one divorce. It’s only after several divorces that their heart health took a dip with a 30 per cent greater risk compared to their counterparts who stayed with their wives.
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“The risk was comparable to that of high blood pressure or if you have diabetes, so it’s right up there, it is pretty big,” Dr. Linda George, another researcher in the study, told the BBC.
Men were able to bounce back if they remarried and stuck to that commitment. Women still felt the effects even if they moved on, she noted to the U.K. outlet.
“I think this is the most interesting bit in the paper. We joke around here and call it the ‘any-women-will-do orientation’ for men,” she said.
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“They’re more comfortable being married than not married and cope with different women being their spouses. First marriages are protective for women and it’s a little dicey after that,” she warned.
There are a handful of factors at play in potentially explaining why there were disparities between the sexes.
For starters, there’s loss of income in the fallout of a divorce. Women could be dealing with stress, which is tied to higher levels of inflammation and a decline in their immune system as stress hormones kick in.
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Women could also encounter a stronger “psychological burden,” George guessed.
Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a cardiovascular medicine expert at the University of California, suggests that divorce could also be tied to giving up on healthy habits, even temporarily as people pick up the pieces in their lives.
They could slip up on eating healthily, exercising or cutting out their vices, he told Health Day.
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“They may want to assess and take proactive steps to improve their cardiovascular health,” he said.
The full findings were published Tuesday night in the journal Circulation. Read the study here.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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