Negative relationships really are unhealthy: New research shows high blood pressure linked to stressful relationships

Bad relationship status may cause physiological health deterioration. The research, conducted by a team from the University of Michigan, discovered men are more sensitive with regards to the stress levels of their wives or partners. These stress levels, from negative relationship qualities, plot long-term effects on the couples' lives.

span style="line-height: 15.8599996566772px;">MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - "We were particularly excited about these findings because they show that the effects of stress and negative relationship quality are truly dyadic in nature," said Kira Birditt, the research's lead author.

She added that the individual's physiological status is not standing alone to his or her own but rather from that of the views and involvement of their partners.

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Birditt also stated that they are particularly interested in their findings showing men are more affected than women when it comes to the marital life stresses. It is contrary to the previous researches implicating women's sensitivity in the issue of their marital lives.

"We speculate that this finding may result from husbands' greater reliance on wives for support which may not be provided when wives are more stressed," Birditt said.

The study was conducted with 1,300 married and co-habiting adults, using systolic blood pressure in gauging whether the participants' blood pressure spike due to their own stress or its affected by their partners'.

An important note is that particularly with negative relationship quality, the wives' stress has major implications on the husbands' blood pressure.

Published in the Journals of Gerontology, it supports a previous research which states that the stress levels and relationship quality affects the cardiovascular health, direct and moderating. The research is suggesting that further studies should consider being couple as a whole unit of analysis in determining their health and marriage status.

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