London - A happy marriage can be as good for heart health as stopping smoking, losing weight or keeping blood pressure in check, according to experts.
Heart bypass patients with supportive spouses are three times more likely to be alive 15 years later than those who have never tied the knot, a study has found.
They also fare significantly better than those in unhappy marriages.
Women in particular benefit from having a husband’s shoulder to lean on, although male patients also do better if they have supportive wives.
The US researchers tracked the health of 225 men and women who had heart bypass surgery, a major operation in which surgeons take a vein from the patient’s leg or chest to divert blood around a furred or blocked artery.
A year after the operation, those who were married were asked to rate their satisfaction with their relationships.
Fifteen years later, 83 percent of the happily wedded women were still alive, compared with 28 percent of those in unhappy marriages and 27 per cent of unmarried women.
The survival rate of contented husbands was also 83 percent. But the unhappily married men fared significantly better than the bachelors. Sixty percent of the men in less than happy marriages lived for at least 15 years after their operation, compared with only 36 percent of those who had never married, the journal Health Psychology reports.
Researcher Kathleen King, of the University of Rochester, New York State, said: “Coronary bypass surgery was once seen as a miracle cure for heart disease.
“But now we know that grafts may be even more susceptible to clogging and disease than native arteries.
“So it’s important to look at the conditions that allow some patients to beat the odds.
“It is likely that caring spouses help by encouraging healthy behaviour. Loving and being loved may also give people a powerful reason to stick around.” - Daily Mail