Walk down the aisle for lower blood pressure, but be happy!

William Atkins
Friday, 21 March 2008 21:07

Science - Health

Brigham Young University researchers found that happily married couples have lower blood pressure than single people, but unhappily married couples are worse off than singles.     

Lead researcher in the study and U.S. psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad states that the finding where unhappily married couples had worse blood pressure levels than singles was a surprise because previous studies have shown just the opposite: that all married people tend to be healthier than unmarried people.

According to the abstract to their paper, “The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of marital status, relationship quality, and network support on measures of psychological and cardiovascular health.”

The Holt-Lunstad study used 204 married adults and 99 unmarried adults. Most of the subjects were Caucasians.

The subjects had their blood pressure monitored and measured randomly over a twenty-four hour period, both while awake and asleep.

Married subjects also filled out questionnaires that showed whether they were happily or unhappily married. All subjects filled out questionnaires about their social network of friends and family and other such social quality questions.

The results from their abstract states: “We found that both marital status and marital quality were important. Married individuals had greater satisfaction with life (SWL) and blood pressure dipping than single individuals. High marital quality was associated with lower ABP [ambulatory blood pressure], lower stress, less depression, and higher SWL. Importantly, contrasting those who are unmarried with those in low-quality marriages, we find that single individuals had lower ABP-suggesting that single individuals fare better than their unhappily married counterparts. Likewise, having a supportive network did not moderate (i.e., buffer) the effects of being single or unhappily married.”

The conclusions found that the more happy people were when married the lower were their average blood pressure.

In fact, both men and women in happy marriages scored, on average, lower than single adults with respect to their blood pressure.

However, married people that were unsatisfied in their marriages scored higher, on average, in blood pressure levels than both single adults and happily married adults.

What did the Holt-Lunstad study state in its conclusion? Please read on.