Men who are married to men live longer than those who are divorced or unmarried. In a brand new report that two researchers from Copenhagen have published their findings on why tying the knot might be the secret to a longer life.
A new study published today (the International Journal of Epidemiology) shows that same-sex marriages are having a positive effect on a gay man’s longevity, whilst the research undertaken shows that women in same-sex marriages were at increased risk of mortality.
Morten Frisch and Jacob Simosen used Denmark’s Civil Registration System to follow 6.5 million adults over three decades. Taking the human variables of the group’s socio-economic statuses, available since 1982 into account, the authors were able to address how living arrangements were linked with overall and cause-specific mortality.
Denmark implemented the world’s first national law on same-sex partnerships in 1989.
Frisch and Simonsen’s research has shown that since 1996, when effective HIV/AIDS treatment became widely available, mortality amongst men married to men dropped to a level below that of unmarried or divorced men.
In stark contrast the study shows that women married to women were at increased risk of earlier death – most notably from suicide or cancer. Frisch responded to this finding by saying, “Lesbians may constitute a largely unnoticed high-risk population for suicide and breast cancer, so our findings call for efforts to identify the underlying factors responsible and ensure access to basic health care in this population.”
Although marriage has long been associated with longevity and being married or cohabiting with a member of the opposite sex was associated with a longer lifespan than all other marital status’s or cohabitation groupings, the new findings showed that married people who don’t live with their spouse face a shortened lifespan.
Morten Frisch says, “It is a novel observation that being married was not always protective. Among persons living alone and persons living in same-sex cohabitation, those who were married to a member of the opposite sex had noticeably higher mortality than unmarried and same-sex married persons.”
“From a public health viewpoint it is important to try to identify those underlying factors and mechanisms that explain the lower mortality among married and cohabiting persons.”
The journal’s homepage can be found at: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org
