Single Life can Take a Toll on Your Heart

Men who never married were more than twice as likely to die within five years of being diagnosed with heart failure as women of any marital status or men who had previously married, as per a study. The study provides new evidence that a person's gender and marital status can alter their risk and prognosis of heart disease. Heart failure, which occurs when the heart muscle becomes too weak or stiff to properly pump blood to the body, is a primary cause of cardiovascular illness and mortality, affecting approximately 6 million individuals in the United States.

Singlehood and Heart

"There is a relationship between a person’s relationship status and their clinical prognosis [with heart failure], and it’s important to figure out why that is," said Katarina Leyba, MD, a resident physician at the University of Colorado and the study’s lead author. "As our population is getting older and living longer, it’s imperative to determine how to best support the population through the aging process, and that might not be as easy as taking a pill. We need to take a personalized and holistic approach to support patients, especially with a chronic disease process like heart failure."

The Study

The study relied on data from the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, a prospective study of 6,800 American individuals aged 45 to 84 years. Researchers analyzed survival rates from the time of heart failure diagnosis by gender and marital status among the 94 study participants with heart failure at year 10 of the study across an average follow-up period of 4.7 years.

Researchers adjusted for age to account for the naturally higher rate of death among older adults and mood status to account for the known effects of depression and other mood disorders on heart failure survival to isolate the contribution of marital status from other known risk factors.

According to the researchers, the reasons behind the association between a man's marital status and survival after heart failure merit additional investigation. Social interaction or isolation, which can affect mood and overall health; access to carer support for help with home health monitoring, medication adherence, and transportation to medical appointments; or differences in health behaviors such as diet, exercise, and alcohol consumption are all potential drivers.

Several factors are likely to play a role for various people, but being aware of a patient's circumstances at home can assist in driving more individualized tactics for managing their health, according to the researchers.

"As clinicians, we need to think about our patients not just in terms of their medical risk factors but also the context of their lives," Leyba said.

Although there is no cure for heart failure, medications, dietary changes, and regular physical activity can help people live longer and minimize common symptoms, including shortness of breath, exhaustion, and edema. Heart failure, as a chronic illness, should be regularly evaluated and actively managed for the duration of a patient's life.

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This includes frequent clinic visits as well as extensive self-monitoring at home, such as daily weight checks (rapid weight gain can be an early warning of fluid buildup) and active monitoring of edema, worsening shortness of breath, exhaustion, medication side effects, and other concerns.

Researchers recommend that clinicians chat with patients about their home lives and explore how their relationship status can help educate and optimize heart failure treatment approaches for each patient.

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Source-Medindia