Save Your Life… With Intimacy

Those who suffer a heart attack and have no spouse or close personal friends are three times more likely to have a fatal heart attack within five years of the original event than those whose hearts are equally injured but are married or have intimate relationships. That is what a study at Duke University Medical School found out. The study is based on a nine year follow-up study of 1,368 patients who were initially admitted to Duke for cardiac catheterization to diagnose heart disease.

The results were consistent for people with both minor and severe heart muscle damage following a heart attack. Such people generally face about a 40 percent chance of dying within five years. The study also found that those who were married or had a close intimate relationship reduced their risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to 20 percent, whereas those who lacked intimacy raised their chance of dying to 60 percent.

It is found consistently in research that both men and women with poor social support are more likely to die that those with more social support. The relative degree of social support an unhealthy person experiences is one of the factors that can predict the outcome of the illness. This is true of all serious illness, including heart disease, cancer and stroke.

The research is particularly interesting in regard to women with breast cancer. Researches wanted to know whether the longevity of survival depended not so much on social support, but on the stage at which the person was diagnosed. It was found that women who live alone tend to be diagnosed at an earlier stage of the cancer than those living with someone else. Yet those who live alone most often die sooner. In other words, early diagnosis was not a factor in determining longevity.

At this time, no one knows exactly why those who live with someone actually live longer, except the finding supports the general conclusion that those who have strong relationships and intimacy tend to have stronger immune responses.