‘Failed marriages lead to mens’ early death’

A factor to predict premature death could be when men perceive their marriage as unsuccessful, according to a Tel Aviv University study that was published Monday. The research from the School of Public Health at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine was based on more than 30 years of research and included 10,000 Israeli men in their 40s. Starting to gather information from the 1960s, the researchers tracked the health and behavior of their participants, paying close attention to death from strokes and premature deaths in general. Early in the study, the participants were asked to rank their level of satisfaction from their marriage from one (very successful) to four (unsuccessful). The researchers were surprised to find that just as smoking and lack of physical activity were a predictive factor to the men’s life expectancy, so was satisfaction from their marriage. Research showed that the number of participants who died from a stroke was 69% higher among those who ranked their marriage as unsuccessful. The researchers also conducted a statistical analysis of all known risk factors that contribute to death from cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes and excessive BMI. They found that the relative risk for death for any reason among the unhappily married versus the happily married was a fifth higher among those dissatisfied with their marriages. This is similar to the statistics for smokers and a sedentary lifestyle. • Jerusalem Post Staff