Marriage is bad for your physical condition? (Yahoo!)

People remain single or becomes unique again in divorce, may be a little more physically fit to those of officers of happiness, a new study suggests.

Research, which followed almost 8,900 adults for many years, has revealed that men and women who have married during this period tended to experience a dip in cardiovascular, as measured by tests on a treadmill.

On the other hand, men who were divorced in the study saw a modest increase in their fitness levels.

The results reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, does not prove that a change in marital status directly causes change in fitness - for better or for worse.

Yet, researchers that the results support the idea that people are married and, probably, off the coast of the dating market, they tend to indulge a little. But if they remain single or if divorced, they have more incentive to get in shape.

This is not to say that there is a gap huge fitness between unmarried and married couples.

In this study, changes in marital status were related to only small changes in fitness, principal investigator Dr. Francisco b. Ortega of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, told Reuters Health in an email.

He stressed that the levels of physical condition of a person depend on a complex mix of factors, including genetics, lifestyle year-end, body composition and overall health.

But if the newly attached are aware that their condition may decline, they could pay more attention to follow a routine training exercise, Ortega and his colleagues.

The conclusions are based on 6 900 men and 1,971 women followed for more than three years at the clinic of Cooper in Dallas, Texas. They had physical examinations, their lifestyle and underwent tests to measure their fitness treadmill.

When it came to marital status, the researchers found, women who remained unique in the period of study showed a slight increase in their levels of physical condition over time. This gain was not observed among women who have married.

For their part, who married men suffered a decline in fitness - but that those who remained single, even if it was a smaller loss. Among men, the differences were more obvious when researchers looked for divorce and re-marriage.

Men who were divorced in the course of the study showed a gain in levels of fitness, while those who remained married saw no change. In the meantime, the men who were divorced initially showed a general decline in physical fitness over time, but the fall has been steeper among those who remarried.

No there is no evidence of any divorce "advantage" among women. However, the researchers say one reason could be that there are far fewer women in the study than men, and that only a small number of women changed their marital status during the follow-up period.

The researchers the results highlight the role of the social factors in the levels of physical condition of the population.

"This study provides first proof of time that the marital transitions are (a) important social stimuli which may affect the fitness", Ortega said.

And adapts to the general idea that major life transitions affect patterns of health of the population, stressed Mr. Steven n. Blair, Professor at the University of South Carolina-, who has also worked on the study.

"Sometimes these effects are positive and negative sometimes", Blair said in an e-mail. "I believe that a message to the public is that they must know the potential effects of life transitions and try and make plans to maintain a healthy lifestyle." SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/rez62r American Journal of Epidemiology, online December 1, 2010.