Emotional and Heart Health Intertwined
It looks like divorce isn't just heartbreaking on a figurative level. It turns out, divorce actually does break a woman's heart.
In a recent study, two researchers from Bowling Green State University and the University of Texas at Austin banded together to study how the financial and emotional stresses caused by divorce affected women and men.
And what they found was interesting: While divorce seems to have very little impact on the cardiovascular health of men, it had a big effect on women.
In the study, the researchers studied data gathered from 9,434 men and women, all between the ages of 51 and 61. The study lasted from 1992 until 2000, and the participants were each interviewed every two years up until the last year.
It turned out the women who divorced, widowed, or remarried were more likely to develop heart disease during those eight years than those who stayed married. In fact, the researchers estimated that 31 percent of the remarried women, 33 percent of the divorced women, and 30 percent of the widows would have heart disease by age 60-if they were still alive at all.
And the kicker? There was absolutely no such difference seen among the men. In fact, remarried men turned out to be 19 percent less likely to develop heart disease than the men who remained married to the same person throughout their lives.
I'm not surprised that divorce can have this sort of effect on women's heart-the emotional strain of divorce on women (who are often left having to raise children alone), mixed with the financial consequences (women are more likely to have to find a new job) is enough to wear on anyone.
Unfortunately, there is no supplement out there that can fix a broken heart. The best advice I can give divorced women is to take especially good care of themselves and to seek out whatever help they need to make their lives as healthy as possible. Please don't feel you have to go it alone! Ask for your doctor for a referral to a qualified therapist or marriage counselor. It may save your life!
