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Achtung! Marital tiffs could prove fatal
An unhealthy relationship with your spouse may make you more susceptible to heart disease, says a study.
An unhealthy relationship with your spouse may make you more susceptible to heart disease. Hardening of the coronary arteries is more likely in wives when they and their husbands express hostility during marital disagreements, and more common in husbands when either they or their wives act in a controlling manner.
"Women who are hostile are more likely to have athero-sclerosis (hardening of the coronary arteries), especially if their husbands are hostile too," Smith said.
"The levels of dominance or control in women or their husbands are not related to women's heart health.
In men, the hostility, their own or their wives hostility during the interaction - wasn't related to atherosclerosis. But their dominance or controlling behavior - or their wives dominance -was related to atherosclerosis in husbands," he added.
The study - which began in 2002 and ended in 2005 - involved 150 married couples with at least one member between 60 and 70 years of age and the other one no more than five years older or younger. The couples were recruited through newspaper advertisements and a polling firm. Those who participated had no history of cardiovascular disease and were not taking medicine for it.
The more hostile the wives' comments during the discussion, the greater the extent of calcification or hardening of the arteries. And "particularly high levels of calcification were found in "women who behaved in a hostile and unfriendly way and who were interacting with husbands who were also hostile and unfriendly."
The extent to which either wives or husbands acted in a dominant or controlling manner was unrelated to the severity of hardening of the arteries in the wives.
