Common sense says a bad marriage can lead to heartbreak.
Swedish researchers said today that women with heart disease who are in a stressful relationship triple their risk of recurrent heart trouble. While a stressful job has been found to aggravate men's heart problems, doctors at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said the determining factor for women with heart trouble is the stresses in their relationship and not stress at work. Below the age of 70, women in general have a worse prognosis than men after suffering a heart attack, though the causes for the disparity is poorly understood, the researchers said. The study suggested that women living alone without a partner fared better than those in a bad relationship. Copyright 2000 Reuters.