Link between marital disputes and heart problems

The way older married couples conduct themselves during a disagreement can help trigger serious health problems, according to a new study reported by the National Post.

By analyzing the behaviour of 150 healthy couples who held differing opinions on a particular topic, researchers at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City found that women who were nasty towards their husbands developed a hardening of their coronary arteries. On the other hand, men developed atherosclerosis when either they dominated, or were dominated by, their wives.

The couples were all in their 60s and had no prior diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. Yet CAT scans conducted on them two days after their disagreement — which lasted only six minutes in a laboratory — revealed that all had suffered to some degree a calcification of the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood.

Read the full article: Spousal disputes, heart problems linked