Marital Distress, Depression, and a Leaky Gut: Translocation of Bacterial Endotoxin as a Pathway to Inflammation

Unhappy marriages take a toll on mental and physical health. For example, marital stress worsened the prognosis for recurrent coronary events three-fold (Orth-Gomer et al., 2000). Among patients with congestive heart failure, marital quality was as strong a predictor of four-year survival as well as patients ’ illness severity (Coyne et al., 2001). A meta-analysis reported that the relationships between marital quality and clinical health endpoints had statistical effect sizes similar in magnitude to the health effects of diet and exercise (Robles et al., 2014).

Source: Psychoneuroendocrinology - August 6, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser, Stephanie J. Wilson, Michael L. Bailey, Rebecca Andridge, Juan Peng, Lisa M. Jaremka, Christopher P. Fagundes, William B. Malarkey, Bryon Laskowski, Martha A. Belury Source Type: research