Unmarried people are more likely to suffer heart attacks

♦ Doctors should take marital status into account when assessing the heart attack and stroke risk of patients, a major British study has found.

Researchers at Keele University analysed dozens of studies involving more than two million people and discovered that, compared with married people, those who had never been married or were divorced or widowed were 42 per cent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease. They were also 42 per cent more likely to die from heart disease and 55 per cent more likely to die from a stroke.

The study’s senior author, Mamas Mamas, a professor of cardiology at the Staffordshire university, said: “Our work suggests that marital status should be considered in patients with or at risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and should be used alongside more traditional cardiac risk factors to identify patients that may be at higher risk for future cardiovascular events.”

Researchers say the findings, published in the BMJ journal Heart, show that marriage has a protective effect on cardiovascular diseases.