Marriage linked to better survival in middle age

Study highlights importance of social ties during midlife

2013-01-10

(Press-News.org) Could marriage, and associated companionship, be one key to a longer life? According to new research, not having a permanent partner, or spouse, during midlife is linked to a higher risk of premature death during those midlife years. The work, by Dr. Ilene Siegler and colleagues from Duke University Medical Center in the US, is published online in Springer's journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

Survival through middle age to become elderly is expected; therefore understanding who does not survive to become elderly and why is important. Siegler and colleagues looked at the effect of marriage history and timing of marriage on premature death during midlife. They were also interested in testing the role of pre-marital personality and quantifying the role of health behaviors.

The researchers analyzed data for 4,802 individuals who took part in the University of North Carolina Alumni Heart Study (UNCAHS) - an ongoing study of individuals born in the 1940s. The authors were particularly interested in stability and change in patterns of marital and non-marital status during midlife, controlling for personality at college entry (average age 18), socioeconomic status and health risk behaviors.

They found that having a partner during middle age is protective against premature death: those who never married were more than twice as likely to die early than those who had been in a stable marriage throughout their adult life. Being single, or losing a partner without replacement, increased the risk of early death during middle age and reduced the likelihood that one would survive to be elderly. Even when personality and risky behaviors were taken into account, marital status continued to have a major impact on survival.

The authors conclude: "Our results suggest that attention to non-marital patterns of partnership is likely to become more important for these Baby Boomers. These patterns appear to provide different levels of emotional and functional social support, which has been shown to be related to mortality. Social ties during midlife are important to help us understand premature mortality."

### Reference Siegler IC et al (2012). Consistency and timing of marital transitions and survival during midlife: the role of personality and health risk behaviors. Annals of Behavioral Medicine; DOI 10.1007/s12160-012-9457-3

The full-text article is available to journalists on request. END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Banded mongooses structure monosyllabic sounds in a similar way to humans

2013-01-10

This press release is available in German. Animals are more eloquent than previously assumed. Even the monosyllabic call of the banded mongoose is structured and thus comparable with the vowel and consonant system of human speech. Behavioral biologists from the University of Zurich have thus become the first to demonstrate that animals communicate with even smaller sound units than syllables. When humans speak, they structure individual syllables with the aid of vowels and consonants. Due to their anatomy, animals can only produce a limited number of distinguishable ...

New report: The reach and impact of mathematical sciences

2013-01-10

The Mathematical Sciences in 2025, a new report from the National Research Council, finds that the mathematical sciences are an increasingly integral component of many disciplines -- including biology, medicine, the social sciences, business, advanced design, and climate studies. However, the expanding role of the mathematical sciences over the past 15 years has not been matched by a comparable increase in federal funding, and the number of federal agencies that provide significant support for this research is considerably smaller than the number that profit from it. The ...

Is there a period of increased vulnerability for repeat traumatic brain injury?

2013-01-10

New Rochelle, NY, January 10, 2013—Repeat traumatic brain injury affects a subgroup of the 3.5 million people who suffer head trauma each year. Even a mild repeat TBI that occurs when the brain is still recovering from an initial injury can result in poorer outcomes, especially in children and young adults. A metabolic marker that could serve as the basis for new mild TBI vulnerability guidelines is described in an article in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Neurotrauma ...

New tool to help brain surgeons 1 step closer to operating room

2013-01-10

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new tool that could allow for faster, more comprehensive testing of brain tissue during surgery successfully identified the cancer type, grade and tumor margins in five brain surgery patients, according to a Purdue University and Brigham and Women's Hospital study. The tool sprays a microscopic stream of charged solvent onto the tissue surface to gather information about its molecular makeup and produces a color-coded image that reveals the nature and concentration of tumor cells. Researchers analyzed specimens removed from the patients, but ...

Scientists design, control movements of molecular motor

2013-01-10

ATHENS, Ohio (Jan. 10, 2013)—An international team of scientists has taken the next step in creating nanoscale machines by designing a multi-component molecular motor that can be moved clockwise and counterclockwise. Although researchers can rotate or switch individual molecules on and off, the new study is the first to create a stand-alone molecular motor that has multiple parts, said Saw-Wai Hla, an Ohio University professor of physics and astronomy who led the study with Christian Joachim of A*Star in Singapore and CEMES/CNRS in France and Gwenael Rapenne of CEMES/CNRS. ...

Giant tobacco plants that stay young forever

2013-01-10

The life of tobacco plants is short. They grow for around three to four months, followed by flowering and then die. Their size is also limited, with plants only growing to about one-and-a-half to two meters tall. Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Münster have located the tobacco plant's very own fountain of youth, which means they can keep it forever young. The Münster-based researchers discovered a genetic switch which can prevent the plants from change blooming to flowering. This also averts the plants' early ...

Surgeons may use hand gestures to manipulate MRI images in OR

2013-01-10

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Doctors may soon be using a system in the operating room that recognizes hand gestures as commands to tell a computer to browse and display medical images of the patient during a surgery. Surgeons routinely need to review medical images and records during surgery, but stepping away from the operating table and touching a keyboard and mouse can delay the procedure and increase the risk of spreading infection-causing bacteria, said Juan Pablo Wachs, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University. "One of the most ubiquitous ...

Which study strategies make the grade?

2013-01-10

Students everywhere, put down those highlighters and pick up some flashcards! Some of the most popular study strategies — such as highlighting and even rereading — don't show much promise for improving student learning, according to a new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In the report, John Dunlosky of Kent State University and a team of distinguished psychological scientists review the scientific evidence for ten learning techniques commonly used by students. "Schools and parents ...

Cutting in and weaving irritate drivers the most, new CAMH study on road rage shows

2013-01-10

January 10, 2013 (Toronto) - Cutting in and weaving, speeding, and hostile displays are among the top online complaints posted by drivers, according to a new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) recently published in an online issue of Accident Analysis and Prevention. Driver aggression is a major safety concern and researchers estimate this behaviour is a factor in nearly half of all motor vehicle collisions. Identifying the underlying causes and strategies for preventing driver aggression continues to be a priority. CAMH researcher Dr. Christine ...

High-frequency stock trading of little value to investors, general public

2013-01-10

The increase in the speed of stock trading from microseconds to nanoseconds leads to an increase in order cancellation, but little else of value to investors and the general public, says research by a University of Illinois business professor. According to a forthcoming study by Mao Ye, a professor of finance at Illinois, the arms race in speed at the sub-millisecond level of stock trading is a "purely positional game" in which a trader's payoff depends on transaction speed relative to other traders. "There are lots of extreme views about high-frequency trading, but ...

Marriage linked to better survival in middle age

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: