A study presented at the World Congress of Cardiology brought good news to married men: marriage can collaborate with the heart – literally. For singles, however, the prognosis is not so positive, since avoiding marriage doubles the chances of dying from heart failure in five years.
The research provided evidence that gender and marital status can have a direct influence on the risk of heart disease.
A study published in the Brazilian Medical Students Journal pointed out that, in Brazil, heart failure is responsible for a high rate of hospitalizations and deaths, which generates a high cost to the public system.
From 2015 to 2020, 1,212,249 hospitalizations and 134,703 deaths from the condition were recorded.
It is worth mentioning that heart failure happens when the heart muscle becomes too weak or rigid to pump blood to the rest of the body.
“There is a relationship between a person’s relationship status and their clinical prognosis [com insuficiência cardíaca]and it’s important to figure out why this is so,” Katarina Leyba, a physician at the University of Colorado and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The scientists used data from another survey, entitled the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, with 6,800 American adults between the ages of 45 and 84. Out of the total, they analyzed 94 volunteers with heart failure.
The investigation evaluated the time that these people remained alive after the diagnosis of insufficiency, considering the gender and marital status of each. As, naturally, the mortality rate of the condition is higher among the elderly, the study also separated these two criteria from other more well-known risk factors, such as depression, for example.
The results indicated that men who had never been married were twice as likely – 2.2 times more precisely – to die of heart failure within, on average, five years after diagnosis, when compared to women of any marital status and married men.
When lifelong singles were compared with widowed, divorced, or separated men, this risk did not increase. For women, marital status did not play a significant role.
The possible explanation for the collaboration between marriage and health is mutual support. In addition to the clear beneficial influence that social interaction has on mood and well-being in general, having someone to act as a caregiver, for example, directly monitoring your health, observing whether you are taking your medications correctly and taking you to medical appointments, it makes all the difference.
Living with other distinctions, such as health behaviors, diet, exercise and alcohol consumption, also exerts an influence.
These factors can change from person to person, but being with someone who knows your limitations and who is aware of the general situation can help when it comes to devising more assertive strategies for health care.
“As physicians, we need to think about our patients not just in terms of medical risk factors, but also in the context of their lives,” Leyba pondered.
There is still no cure for heart failure, but medications, changes in diet and the practice of physical activity can improve the individual’s quality of life.
Because it is a chronic condition, it must be closely monitored and managed for the rest of your life, with daily weight measurements (a sudden increase can mean fluid accumulation), for example.
Scientists recommend that healthcare professionals talk to their patients to understand how personal relationships can affect their care.
“As our population is aging and living longer, it is imperative to determine how best to support the population through the aging process, and that may not be as easy as popping a pill. We need to take a personalized and holistic approach to supporting patients, especially with a chronic disease process such as heart failure”, concludes the researcher.
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