Spouses Really Are Together in Sickness and in Health

A couple’s health is surprisingly intertwined according to a recent cohort study that looked at Dutch and Japanese marriages.

The study discovered that spouses have a high degree of commonality in not only lifestyle habits, but body shape, blood pressure, and even incidences of some diseases.

When it comes to marriage, the adage “birds of a feather flock together” is relatively true. Previous studies have indicated that we gravitate towards people of similar social class, educational background, race, and weight. The scientific name for this is assertive mating, and it means that spouses are often genetically similar. This allows researchers to explore environmental factors in greater detail.

Researchers examined 5,391 pairs from Japan and 28,265 from the Netherlands, drawing on data from the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project, and the Lifelines study in the Netherlands.

Journal: Atherosclerosis

Release date: 22 September 2021
Source: Tohoku University