A nagging wife can help
you live longer, says the recent study on heart patients.
Married heart attack
victims arrived at the hospital half an hour sooner than those who were not
married! However this was
found to be applicable only for men.
Men
often deny or ignore physical symptoms, both their own
and those of their soul mates. A chest pain is often given least importance by
men, while their wives cajole them into visiting a doctor. A wife pushes her
husband to visit a clinic long before a man thinks he needs to go. This
explains why men who experience chest pains while having a heart attack tend to
get to a hospital sooner if they're married or in a common-law relationship.
Earlier medical
attention means lower death rates due to heart attack in married men compared
to men who are single, widowed, or divorced. Marriage has long been known to be
associated with better health, particularly for men. A wife who takes the role
of caregiver sets up doctor appointments, and reminds or nags (as required) her
partner to attend them.
However married women do
not enjoy similar privileges. With respect to the mortality from heart attacks,
married women or those in committed relationships were not much different from
the single ones.
The researchers explored
into the records of 4403 patients with acute myocardial infarction (heart
attack) admitted to acute care hospitals. The
ones studied were those admitted to the hospital
after experiencing chest pains and subsequently treated for a heart attack.
Chest pain is a classic symptom of heart attack though it does not always
occur. About three-quarters of married people sought treatment within six hours
of their first symptoms, compared with 68% of single, 69% of divorced and 71%
of widowed people.
An average time gap of 30 minutes was what married
men had ahead of the unmarried ones in being rushed to the hospital.
Though not error free, the findings are significant. The fact that treatment
gap between married and non-married people applied only to men is unfortunate
though.
Source: Effect of marriage on duration of chest pain associated with acute myocardial infarction before seeking care" Clare L. Atzema, Peter C. Austin, Thao Huynh, Ansar Hassan, Maria
Chiu, Julie T. Wang, Jack V. Tu CMAJ July 18, 2011
Source-Medindia