Guys: Get married for the sake of your bones, but wait until you're 25

Marriage is good for the health of men's bones — but only if they marry when they're 25 or older, new UCLA research suggests.   In a study published online in the peer-reviewed journal Osteoporosis International, researchers found evidence that men who married when they were younger than 25 had lower bone strength than men who married for the first time at a later age.   In addition, men in stable marriages or marriage-like relationships who had never previously divorced or separated had greater bone strength than men whose previous marriages had fractured, the researchers said. And those in stable relationships also had stronger bones than men who never married.   Although for women there were no similar links between bone health and being married or in a marriage-like relationship, the study authors did find evidence that women with supportive partners had greater bone strength than those whose partners didn't appreciate them, understand how they felt or were emotionally unsupportive in other ways.   This is the first time that marital histories and marital quality have been linked to bone health, said the study's senior author, Dr. Carolyn Crandall, a professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.   "There is very little known about the influence of social factors — other than socioeconomic factors — on bone health," Crandall sa...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news