The link between marriage and your risk of heart disease and stroke

It's already pretty common knowledge that an unhealthy lifestyle can have dramatic consequences on our health: foods high in salt and sugar, alcohol, cigarettes, and excessive sedentarism don't just increase your risk of obesity and diabetes; in the worst-case scenario, they could also lead to heart disease and strokes.

However, as scientists have now discovered, there's another significant risk factor: your marriage status.

It turns out risk factors may extend beyond diet and lifestyle

A study published in Heart, conducted by scientists from Keele University in the UK and Macquarie University in Sydney, showed that married people have a significantly lower risk of suffering from heart disease or a stroke than singles, divorced, or widowed people.

The findings could be of enormous importance — while 80% of all heart disease is due to the risk factors known to date, the reasons behind the remaining 20% of cases up until now have been unclear.

The researchers evaluated 34 existing studies on cardiovascular diseases between 1963 to 2015, looking at the data of more than two million people aged between 42 and 77 from Europe, the Middle East, North America and Asia.

The researchers found that singles have a 42% higher risk of cardiovascular disease, a 16% higher risk of cardiovascular disease and a 55% higher probability of having a stroke than married people. However, widowed or divorced people have a somewhat lower risk of getting such diseases than those who have never been married before.

Researchers want to see if relationship status can also increase the risk of other diseases

"Our work suggests that relationship status must also be considered when it comes to the risk of cardiovascular disease," says Mamas Mamas, lead author of the study and professor of cardiology at Keele University.

The reason why relationship status plays such an important role in heart disease and strokes will have to be examined in the future, but the scientists also want to find out whether it could also influence other diseases.

"Future research should focus on whether relationship status is a possible marker for other diseases or cardiovascular risk, or whether it should be considered a risk factor of its own," said Chun Chun Wai Wong of Keele University, another of the lead study authors.