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Healthcare Prof:
Single or unhappily married males may have an elevated danger of fatal stroke in the coming decades, according to a large study presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2010.
The findings are based on earlier work in which researchers examined ten,059 civil servants and municipal workers (average age 49) who participated inside the Israeli Ischemic Heart Disease Study in 1963. Using the national death registry and other records, researchers tracked the fate of the guys by means of 1997, the last year for which underlying causes of death had been coded.
Among the men who in 1963 had been single, 8.4 percent died of stroke inside the following 34 years, compared with 7.1 percent with the married males. Thinking about age at death and adjusting for socioeconomic status, obesity, blood pressure, smoking habits and family size, as well as existing diabetes and heart disease in the time of the earlier survey, single guys had a 64 percent higher risk of fatal stroke than did married guys. That figure is comparable to the threat of fatal stroke faced by men with diabetes, mentioned Uri Goldbourt, Ph.D., author with the study.
Furthermore, in 1965, the married men had been asked to evaluate their marriages as very successful, quite successful, not so successful, or unsuccessful. In an analysis with the 3.6 percent of males who had reported dissatisfaction in their marriage, adjusted risk of a fatal stroke was also 64 percent greater, compared with males who considered their marriages very successful.
“I had not expected that unsuccessful marriage would be of this statistical importance,” said Goldbourt, a professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
The new study has many limitations, he stated, including a lack of data on nonfatal vs. fatal strokes and on participants’ medical treatment soon after the very first five years of the initial study. Ladies also weren’t included.
While the effects of marital status and success could be similar in women, “there are still differences, and analysis on ladies is clearly needed,” Goldbourt mentioned.
The investigation is a snapshot of Israel from more than 4 decades ago, he mentioned. “How much this reflects associations between being happily or relatively happily married and stroke-free survival in other populations, at later times, is not readily deduced.”
Author disclosures can be found on the abstract.
The study was funded by a collaborative project of Hadassah Medical Organization, The Israeli Ministry of Health along with the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Click here to download audio clips offering perspective on this analysis from American Stroke Association spokesperson, Daniel Lackland, DrPH, M.S.P.H., Professor and Director of Graduate Training, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, S.C.
Source
American Heart Association