Can divorce shorten life expectancy?
New research from the University of Arizona suggests that lower life satisfaction among divorced people may lead to less physical activity and more smoking, two factors linked to an increased risk of early death.
Divorced people are more likely to smoke than married people, resulting in poorer lung function, which predicts an increased risk of early death.
The findings are based on data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a long-term health study of people over the age of 50 living in the UK. The study includes seven waves of data, collected from participants every two years starting in 2002.
 |
| Illustration photo. |
The study, published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, included data from 5,786 participants, of whom 926 were divorced, separated, or had not remarried. The remainder of the sample consisted of people who were married.
Participants self-reported their life satisfaction, exercise frequency, and smoking status. Lung function and inflammation levels were also examined.
After tracking mortality among study participants, researchers found that those who were divorced or separated had a 46 percent higher risk of death than those who were married.
The results also showed that divorced or separated women had significantly lower life satisfaction than married women.
“Although the study did not clearly identify why divorce seemed to be associated with a greater risk of smoking and lower levels of physical activity, one possible reason is that divorced people do not have a spouse around to help them pay attention to their health behaviors,” said Kyle Bourassa of the University of Arizona.
Bourassa argues that in many ways, when a relationship ends, we often lose important social control over our health behaviors.
However, not all divorces lead to negative health outcomes. For example, quality of life can improve significantly for people who end an unhappy marriage.
