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American Morning
Paging Dr. Gupta: A Happy Marriage, A Healthy Heart
Aired September 16, 2003 - 08:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A happy marriage, a healthy heart. A study suggests that marital bliss can have significant health benefits for women.
Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center for us this morning with details.
Good morning, Sanjay. I got to tell you, I love this study.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I was thinking that you're probably waiting all morning for this one.
O'BRIEN: Exactly.
GUPTA: Listen, for a long time, it's been known that men actually derive a significant health benefit from being married. That's not disputed. That's well-known medical lore. But now some particularly enterprising researchers decided to see if the reverse was true as well, and the answer is sort of.
Yes, women do derive health benefits from being married, but only if that marriage is a happy one. At least that's the conclusion of a good study out of Pittsburgh and San Diego, looking at 493 postmenopausal women. They looked at postmenopausal women specifically because these are women who are more likely to have problems with their heart disease and things like that. And what they found was that, over time, actually stratifying the women who had happy marriages versus women who were single, divorced or widowed, they found that several risk factors tended to improve, specifically with the women who had happier marriages. They looked at lower cardiovascular risk factors. They had decreases in weight, they exercised more, better blood pressure control, cholesterol, body mass index, anxiety, and depression levels all improved again in these women who specifically had happy marriages.
Now I point out a couple of things, Soledad, because a lot of people are probably sort of wondering about this study a bit, and there are some things to point out. This study was done primarily in white women who are well educated, so this may not apply across the board to all women, but an interesting study nonetheless.
And also, people are asking, how do you determine that a marriage is a good marriage? Well, they did this on a basis of a questionnaire really, and questionnaires are what they are. It's just basically a series of questions for women to answer about time spent together. You can read through the whole list there, but a series of questions that women were asked to try to determine if their marriage was, in fact, a happy one. Their conclusions, again, happier marriage, better health lifestyle.
O'BRIEN: Well, Sanjay, questions for you. Did they assess the impact that making more money would have, because you have to imagine that a couple is going to have a higher income than a single person, and also I guess do they assess the impact of having someone outside the effect on cardiovascular risk, having a partner who's interested in your health as well, what kind of impact that would have?
GUPTA: Yes, Soledad, I think you just hit on two of the big reasons as to why this link may be there. One is just a practical one. The socioeconomic, not only having more money, but also having health insurance. If one of the partners has health insurance, oftentimes the other partner does as well, as a result of the employment situation.
But also you know, better health practices. Couples are more likely to encourage the other towards better diet, toward exercise, things like that, but even more philosophically than that, they have known for quite some time that social isolation, people who live alone for the most part, tend to have more unhealthy lifestyles, and that's something that's been known for a long time. So go out there and make your women healthy, not just happy I guess was the conclusion finally -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: A good conclusion. Sanjay, thanks for that. I like that study a lot.
GUPTA: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 16, 2003 - 08:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A happy marriage, a healthy heart. A study suggests that marital bliss can have significant health benefits for women.
Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center for us this morning with details.
Good morning, Sanjay. I got to tell you, I love this study.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I was thinking that you're probably waiting all morning for this one.
O'BRIEN: Exactly.
GUPTA: Listen, for a long time, it's been known that men actually derive a significant health benefit from being married. That's not disputed. That's well-known medical lore. But now some particularly enterprising researchers decided to see if the reverse was true as well, and the answer is sort of.
Yes, women do derive health benefits from being married, but only if that marriage is a happy one. At least that's the conclusion of a good study out of Pittsburgh and San Diego, looking at 493 postmenopausal women. They looked at postmenopausal women specifically because these are women who are more likely to have problems with their heart disease and things like that. And what they found was that, over time, actually stratifying the women who had happy marriages versus women who were single, divorced or widowed, they found that several risk factors tended to improve, specifically with the women who had happier marriages. They looked at lower cardiovascular risk factors. They had decreases in weight, they exercised more, better blood pressure control, cholesterol, body mass index, anxiety, and depression levels all improved again in these women who specifically had happy marriages.
Now I point out a couple of things, Soledad, because a lot of people are probably sort of wondering about this study a bit, and there are some things to point out. This study was done primarily in white women who are well educated, so this may not apply across the board to all women, but an interesting study nonetheless.
And also, people are asking, how do you determine that a marriage is a good marriage? Well, they did this on a basis of a questionnaire really, and questionnaires are what they are. It's just basically a series of questions for women to answer about time spent together. You can read through the whole list there, but a series of questions that women were asked to try to determine if their marriage was, in fact, a happy one. Their conclusions, again, happier marriage, better health lifestyle.
O'BRIEN: Well, Sanjay, questions for you. Did they assess the impact that making more money would have, because you have to imagine that a couple is going to have a higher income than a single person, and also I guess do they assess the impact of having someone outside the effect on cardiovascular risk, having a partner who's interested in your health as well, what kind of impact that would have?
GUPTA: Yes, Soledad, I think you just hit on two of the big reasons as to why this link may be there. One is just a practical one. The socioeconomic, not only having more money, but also having health insurance. If one of the partners has health insurance, oftentimes the other partner does as well, as a result of the employment situation.
But also you know, better health practices. Couples are more likely to encourage the other towards better diet, toward exercise, things like that, but even more philosophically than that, they have known for quite some time that social isolation, people who live alone for the most part, tend to have more unhealthy lifestyles, and that's something that's been known for a long time. So go out there and make your women healthy, not just happy I guess was the conclusion finally -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: A good conclusion. Sanjay, thanks for that. I like that study a lot.
GUPTA: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
