Growing old with a partner a healthier option

Jul 13 2006

According to new research from Denmark older people who live alone are twice as likely to suffer serious heart disease than those who live with a partner.

Kirsten Nielsen, of Aarhus Sygehus University Hospital, in a three-year study of 138,000 people aged between 30 and 69 found that two of the strongest indicators for acute coronary syndrome, which includes severe angina, heart attacks and sudden cardiac death, are age and living alone.

The researchers found that heart disease was diagnosed in 646 people during that period and it was evident that though a poor education and living on a pension were associated with an increased risk of the syndrome, age and living alone were the main predictive factors.

Nielson says that women older than 60 and men older than 50 who lived by themselves were twice as likely to develop heart disease and it was likely to be linked to factors associated with single living, such as smoking, obesity, high cholesterol levels, less frequent visits to family doctors and the lack of a family support network.

Men aged over 50 living alone made up only 7.7 percent of the study group, and women living alone aged over 60 just 5.4 percent.

Nielson says age is itself a risk factor, and when you combine that with living alone you have a group in the population at a very high risk.

Within this age group lone men accounted for two-thirds of the male patients who died within a month of being diagnosed with angina or heart attack between 2000 and 2002, while the lone women in the age group made up a third of deaths.

The lowest incidence of serious heart disease was found among those living with a partner, who had enjoyed a high standard of education and were in work.

Nielsen believes the study will help health authorities to easily identify a sector of the population who could be screened for heart disease risk and suggests that older single people could be given treatment for levels of cholesterol or hypertension which would not normally trigger treatment among the wider population.

The study is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.