IN AN effort to provide
I get a chuckle every time I see a new male patient who does not know why he has an appointment to see me. I will ask, "How can
I never laugh out loud, however. I calmly inform my reluctant patient that married men live longer.
Through a great deal of research, I can confidently make this claim. Married men survive longer and live healthier lives than their single or divorced counterparts, according
Please don't run out and marry the first person you meet, however. Having a happy marriage is what benefits people, not a relationship that resembles "The War of the Roses."
In a very simple study, it was documented that married adults--male and female--had lower blood pressure than single or divorced adults. The one caveat to this study: Unhappily married adults had elevations in their blood pressure similar to that of divorced and single adults. (The devil is in the details!)
Married adults also have lower rates of alcoholism, smoking and other risky behaviors. Why? With a healthy marriage comes
Anecdotally, I often see married people who were implored to overcome fears about getting medical attention by their spouses, and who thereby avert serious negative health outcomes. To put that simply, they were nagged into my office and the nagging saved their life!
With any luck, my wife will not encourage rushing to the "until death do we part" chapter of our lives and will nag me when needed. (You know doctors make terrible patients.)
MUTUAL SUPPORT
A happy marriage provides a deep social connection, and thus individuals in successful marriages often score lower on depression scales. Getting married reduces depressive symptoms, and getting divorced increases them.
Please do not misunderstand me, though. This does not constitute medical advice to put down your Prozac and propose to the next attractive person at your favorite bar.
The key to these research studies is the mutual support gained from a happy marriage--married people tend to be more economically secure, have shorter hospital stays and are less likely to end up in nursing homes.
THE OTHER SIDE
I do have to present the other side, however. Some less romantically inclined sociologists have theorized that marriage is not the cause of extended life expectancy, but rather the effect. Think Darwin: Healthier and more genetically appealing people are more likely to get married, thus the observed effect in longer lives.
There is no real way to prove this; it is just a bitter, jealous theory of a loveless set of scientists who spend too much time in the lab to find true love. (I might have taken to some hyperbole there, but it is my column, and I just got hitched.)
More concrete research documents one important negative effect of marriage--expanding waistlines. Married adults gain more weight than their single counterparts.
I can attest to this. However, I fully trust that my wife will begin to point out that
If you are looking for a good book on cultivating a successful marriage, I would humbly suggest a book titled "The New Rules of Marriage" by Dr. Terrence Real. His work and research, along with that of other social psychologists, looks at what makes "happy" marriages work, and what leads to sprinkling rat poison in your spouse's coffee.
It is not necessary to marry to live a healthy life, and certainly a desire to live longer should not be your only reason to marry. But the association between longer, healthier lives and saying "I do" has been seen through multiple research studies.
Perhaps I will live longer, so long as my spouse keeps asking probing questions such as, "Are you really going to eat that?" "Don't you think it's time for a run?" and "Can you still see your toes?"
Ahhhh, marital bliss.
Dr. Christopher Lillis can be reached at newsroom@freelance star.com.
Dr. Christopher Lillis is an internist with Chancellor Internal Medicine in Fredericksburg. |