Marriage helps men survive surgery

BEING married can be the key to a happy and contented life. And now researchers have discovered that tying the knot has another benefit for men – they are more likely to survive surgery.

A study reveals that single men are a third more likely to die within two years of hospital treatment. And divorcees have a 76 per cent greater risk of postsurgery death than married men or widowers. However, being married has no post-surgery effect for women.

‘This is the first study to demonstrate the protective effect of marriage across a wide variety of surgical procedures,’ say researchers from Duke University in North Carolina, who reported their findings in the Journal of Surgical Research.

A study of more than 11,500 adults who had undergone non-heart surgery was carried out. Overall, 7.6 per cent of those patients died within two years of having their operation.

Divorced men had the highest increased risk of dying at 76 per cent, while those who had never married had a 53 per cent higher risk.

Exactly how marriage protects men, but not women, is unclear. Previous research has shown women have larger social networks than men, who tend to rely solely on their spouse.

Widowers tend to maintain strong connections with their families, which explains why they have the same survival rates as married men.

Divorced men, on the other hand, are more likely to lose contact with family.