Around 80 percent of all heart disease cases are reported to be due to known factors such as smoking, high cholesterol levels, diabetes and hypertension. But what about the remaining 20 percent?

A team of research scientists from the University of Keele and the Academic Department of Cardiology at the Royal Stoke Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, in the United Kingdom, have reported that marital status can have an effect on developing heart diseases.

Compared to married people, singles (unmarried, divorced and widowed) have a 16 percent higher risk for coronary artery disease and 42 percent higher chance of death.

The strength of this research work includes lies in the fact that the studied population covered a variety of ethnicities and age groups. But at the same time, the research team had no idea what the quality of the marriages were as It was only an observational study where one cannot draw any defined conclusions about the mechanisms behind the observations.

The potential reasons behind the effect of marriage include better financial security, prompt recognition of health issues and taking right action thereby improving the overall condition of a person.

Chun Wai Wong, the cardiovascular researcher from the University of Keele cum the senior author said, "Future research should focus around whether marital status is a surrogate marker for other adverse health behavior or cardiovascular risk profiles that underlies our reported findings or whether marital status should be considered as a risk factor by itself."