A new study finds that people with heart disease have a higher risk of death if they’re not married.

There is an interesting study linking being unmarried to poor outcomes for heart patients:

ATLANTA — Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Science may help shed some light on the answer, at least when it comes to heart health: A new study finds that people with heart disease have a higher risk of death if they’re not married.

Scientists have long known that divorced individuals face an increased risk of death in general, but this is among the first study to evaluate the connection between marital status and heart disease-related conditions and deaths in divorced, separated, widowed, or never married patients….

The researchers discovered alarming statistics based off of their findings in unmarried patients through phone interviews and medical chart abstractions.

Specifically, being unmarried was associated with 24 percent higher death from any cause; 45 percent risk of death from cardiovascular disease; and 52 percent higher risk of cardiovascular death/heart attack. In terms of which patients and how much higher the risk of cardiovascular death/heart attack when unmarried, the authors determined that those who were never married had a 40 percent higher risk; divorced or separated patients had a 41 percent higher risk; and widowed patients had a 71 percent higher risk.

They observed that patients who were unmarried were more likely to be female and black, and suffer from hypertension, heart failure, or high cholesterol.

I would say that being married means that someone is monitoring your health, if your marriage is good. But a bad marriage would not help one’s health and may even hurt it. And it may not be better to have loved and lost your loved one, because widowed patients have the highest risk of death from heart problems.