Unhappy marriage is bad for your health

Married couples who constantly argue risk damaging their health, according to a study. It found that marital rows can prolong the time it takes the body to heal itself after an injury. One argument alone can slow this process by a day.

And the study claims that when &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/359/11612_.html' target=_blank>married couples feel consistently hostile towards one another, the delay in the healing process can be doubled.

Its findings could have important implications for patients booked for surgery because they mean that marital disharmony could put back their recovery time.

The study, published yesterday in the Archives of General Psychiatry, analysed 42 couples who had been married for at least 12 years. The couples were asked to take part in a set of experiments which were designed to find out how quickly wounds heal in certain situations.

Each pair made two 24-hour visits to the university, two months apart. During both visits, the husband and wife were each fitted with a small suction device that created eight tiny uniform blisters on their arms, reports Daily Mail.