More Than a Pretty Face
I met my wife in chiropractic college. I used to borrow her notes and we’d cram for finals together. I can admit, now, what was so obvious then. She was smarter then me and, in some ways, more educated. I suspected that the good feeling I had whenever I was around her was good for my health, mentally and physically. Now there is scientific proof to back up my suspicions. In a new study, researchers found that a woman’s education was a stronger factor in her husband’s risk of dying over the next decade or so than a man’s own level of education.
The study, conducted by Drs. Robert Erikson and Jenny Torssander of the Swedish Institute for Social Research in Stockholm, revealed (in part) that men who hadn’t reached high school were 1.1 times more likely to die during follow-up than men who’d finished college. But the education of a man’s partner had a stronger effect than his own schooling; men living with a woman without any high school education were 1.25 times more likely to die than men living with a college graduate.
“We can assume that more highly educated women have better possibilities to find the important health messages that are around,” Erikson said, “There are lots of health messages in the media and I think some of them are important and some are just misleading.”
The full article contains more about the study and includes sources: reuters.com
Leave a Comment