Husbands and Wives Suffer from Similar Diseases

Genetic predisposition has nothing to do with it

People say that a husband and his wife begin to look like one another if they are married for a long period of time. Probably, this  is an exaggeration. However, a husband and wife often suffer from one and the same disease, which is more believable. This finding was discovered by British doctors, after they conducted research on 8,386  couples.

A group of researchers headed by Dr. Julia Hippisley-Cox  decided to find out what happens to the health of  couples who suffer from most common diseases in the world. The list of the most common illnesses includes high blood-pressure, diabetes, ischemia, stomach ulcers, asthma, and the common heart attack. The doctors selected couples between 30 and 74 years of age. Another important factor for their selection was the time that the people have been married: 15 years, regardless of whether the marriage was on the books or not.

The results of the research turned out to be quite interesting. A spouse is at a bigger risk of catching the most common diseases if he or she never suffered from them before. For instance, if a women is married to a man suffering from diabetes, she is very likely to have diabetes herself. Yet, the scientists said that the phenomenon needs more in-depth research.

A clear connection with a partner’s illness was found with women whose husbands suffered from high-blood pressure, or ischemia. There were also sick women found whose husbands also suffered from these illnesses as well.. The asthma correlation turned out to be rather high. The doctors are drawn to believe that it is caused with the impact of the same allergens and similar nourishment. The connection between husband’s and wife’s weight turned out to be very important. If a spouse a spouse is overweight, the other spouse is also likely to be overweight. In addition, if the man enjoys smoking, his wife is also likely to smoke.

The doctors came to one conclusion. A similar environment and lifestyle basically cause many of the same diseases among couples. This has nothing to do with genetics. In other words, if a spouse suffers from a disease, the chances that the other spouse will also catch the same disease are very high.  This data can be very useful for the development of family health programs.

http://www.izvestia.ru
Translated by Dmitry Sudakov