Marital satisfaction and metabolic syndrome

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

See the below for a short review of a pdf-available report on martial

satisfaction

and metabolic syndrome.

In This Issue of Archives of Internal Medicine

Arch Intern Med. 2005;165:972.

Marital Quality and Occurrence of the Metabolic Syndrome in Women

Research shows that marriage is associated with health benefits for men, but the

evidence is less consistent in women, perhaps owing to a failure to consider the

quality of the marriage. In a sample of 413 middle-aged women from the

Pittsburgh

Healthy Women Study, Troxel and colleagues examined whether women’s marital

status

and satisfaction predicted reduced risk of developing the metabolic syndrome in

the

next 11.5 years. Results showed that maritally satisfied women were

significantly

less likely to develop the metabolic syndrome over the next 11.5 years compared

with

maritally dissatisfied, divorced, or widowed women. Single women and moderately

satisfied women did not significantly differ from maritally satisfied women in

their

metabolic risk. Given the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, roughly 32%

among

women aged 50 to 59 years, it may be useful to assess marital quality as part of

the

patient’s social history.

[Relative risks relative to 1 for satisfied were eye-balled odds ratios of

metabolic

syndrome of 1.1 for moderately satisfied, 3.2 for dissatisfied, 2.3 for single,

2.6

for divorced and 6 for widowed.]

Al Pater, PhD; email: old542000@...

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