Marriage May Help You Survive a Stroke

[Guest Nicole]

Your marriage status may be a good predictor of whether you survive a stroke.

Many studies have shown that married people are generally better off financially than those who are single. They also tend to have more friends and social support, and engage in fewer unhealthy behaviors than the unmarried. But even after controlling for these and other factors, researchers found that being married by itself increases the probability of survival after a stroke.

The analysis, in the Journal of the American Heart Association, included a nationally representative sample of 2,351 men and women who had had a stroke and were discharged from the hospital. During the study period, from 1992 to 2010, 1,362 of them later died.

The researchers found that compared to the continuously married, the never married had a 34 percent higher risk of death. People who had had multiple divorces were at a 50 percent higher risk, and those widowed multiple times had a 25 percent higher risk. Being divorced or widowed only once, though, did not increase the risk.

The lead author, Matthew E. Dupre, a sociologist at Duke University, said that the study confirmed other research showing “how our social relationships can have immediate and lasting consequences for our health.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/well/family/marriage-may-help-you-survive-a-stroke.html?_r=0