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 While previous research has linked stress and bad relationships to
elevated blood pressure, less is known about how these challenges
affect both members of a couple, and how the spouses affect one
another, over time.
For the current study, researchers evaluated about 1,350 couples
once in 2006 and again in 2010 to see how each person’s blood
pressure might change based on shifts in their relationship
satisfaction or stress levels.
“We found that husbands had higher blood pressure when wives
reported greater stress and that this link was even greater when
husbands felt more negative about the relationship,” lead study
author Kira Birditt, a scientist at the Institute for Social
Research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said by email.
“In addition, negative marital quality experienced by only one
member of the couple was not associated with blood pressure, but
when both members of the couple reported higher negative marital
quality they both had higher blood pressure,” added Birditt.
About one in three U.S. adults has high blood pressure, according to
the National Institutes of Health.
Birditt and colleagues reviewed data from a nationwide sample of
22,000 people born in 1953 or earlier, focusing on a subset of
opposite-sex couples with both members having participated in
face-to-face interviews about their relationships.
Compared to the larger group, the subset in this study was
healthier, younger, more likely to be white and report less chronic
stress. Most couples were married, but 3% were cohabitating.
In 2006, about one third of husbands had high blood pressure, as did
26% of the wives. By 2010, 37% of the men and 30% of the women had
high blood pressure.
Stressed out husbands had lower blood pressure when their wives
reported less stress, the study found. The stressed out women,
however, had lower blood pressure when their husbands were also
under a lot of stress.
The wives’ stress was more likely to be linked to high blood
pressure in their spouses when the men were unhappy with the
relationship.
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The study only used four questions to assess relationship quality,
which might miss some nuances that could impact the results, the
researchers acknowledge in their April 7 online report in the
Journals of Gerontology, Series B.
There is mounting evidence that exposure to stress, including
negative relationships or marriages, is related to poor
physiological outcomes, Kristen Peek, a professor of preventive
medicine and community health at the University of Texas Medical
Branch in Galveston, said by email.
“Older husbands tend to be dependent on their wives for care,
defined broadly as meal preparation, household responsibility and
caregiving,” said Peek, who wasn’t involved in the study.
For older couples whose marriages follow more traditional gender
roles, it makes sense that "older husbands would have decreased
mental and physical health in response to their wives decline,” Peek
said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1KihrkU
J Gerontol B 2015.
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