Don’t Take My Wife, Please
Comedians have been getting cheap laughs at the expense of the old ball and chain for as long as there have been women and steel. The funny thing is that as much as we joke about women driving us to our graves, the fact is that they actually add years to our lives. Finding a mate and being happily married is about as good as, if not better for our health than, quitting smoking, maintaining healthy blood pressure, eating a low-fat diet, or exercising more than 60 minutes a day.
Marriage may also be the key to disease survival, say experts. When researchers at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Miami checked the survival rates of 143,969 men with prostate cancer, they found that those who were married lived almost three years longer than those who either were never married or were separated or divorced. Marriage is even better for your health if you do it only once. Researchers found that the trauma of divorce can be bad enough to negate the benefits of being remarried.
“But the findings are pretty consistent that being married has plenty of health benefits for men,” says study author Joan Tucker, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. “Women traditionally do things for men that have health benefits. Things like improving his diet, reducing his risky behavior, providing stress relief, and helping him remember to take medication are all strong health supports.”
You are what you eat
Remember the tired old “an apple a day” cliche? Well, a 20-some-year study of almost 10,000 people in Finland confirmed it. Those who ate the most flavonoids, which are natural antioxidants found in many fruits and vegetables, had lower risks for all cancers and half the risk for lung cancer than those who ate the least. The clear winner for lowering lung cancer rates? You guessed it: apples.
But apples aren’t the only fruit of paradise for your health. A study of more than 2,000 Welsh men demonstrated that those who ate the most of any kind of fruit had half the risk for all cancers compared to those who ate the least.
Hell, it’s becoming so hip to eat healthy that major-league ballpark stadiums are even hawking fruits and vegetables next to the weenies and fries these days. Busch Stadium, the Astrodome, Dodger Stadium, Jacobs Field, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Riverfront Stadium, and Shea Stadium all offer vegetables, garden salads, or fruit and vegetable platters. Others, including Candlestick Park and Wrigley Field, offer garden burgers and other healthful stadium snacks.
Laughing in the Face of Death
Though Bobby McFerrin almost drove us all to an early grave in 1988, with his incessant and insipid “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” his advice was scientifically sound. If you can laugh in the face of adversity, you can live better, longer.
A Japanese researcher studying 157 men and women ages 65 and older has found a strong connection between maintaining a general sense of well-being and having low levels of total cholesterol, low levels of artery-blocking low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and high levels of healthful high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. Lifting your spirits, he concluded, is important in caring for your heart.
Any moves that men can make to relieve their stress and lighten their moods will probably decrease their risks for heart attack, says Dr. Ichiro Kawachi of the Harvard School of Public Health.
*14/36/5*
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