Source: news.bbc.co.uk
UNITED KINGDOM, July 30, 2009: Divorce has a lingering, detrimental impact on health that even remarriage cannot fully repair, a study suggests.
The Chicago study involving 8,652 people aged 51 to 61 found divorced people have 20% more chronic illnesses such as cancer than those who never marry.
The figure only drops to 12% for those who remarry, researchers write in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. They say we start adulthood with a “health stock” that is kept or eroded depending on our marital experience.
Researcher Dr Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said divorce or widowhood undermines health because incomes drop and stress develops over issues such as shared child care. Whereas marriage tends to bring an immediate health benefit, in that it improves health behaviors for men and financial well-being for women.