Women who divorce multiple times are twice as likely to have a heart attack, study finds

Divorce can damage both physical and emotional health

The study found the stress associated with divorce had a lasting impact on the body and health (Getty Images )

Women who go through multiple divorces are nearly twice as likely to have a heart attack than their counterparts who stay married, a new study has suggested.

A team at the Duke University Medical Centre in the US found divorce increased heart attack risk among both men and women, particularly those who divorced more than once.

Their study analysed the responses of 15,827 men and women who had married at least once. The participants were interviewed about their health and marital status every two years between 1992 and 2010. One third divorced at least once during this period.

It found the stress associated with divorce had a lasting impact on health. The risk of a heart attack among women who went through one divorce increased by 24 per cent in comparison to women who stayed married to their spouse.

For women who divorced more than twice, their risk of a heart attack nearly doubled, making it comparable to having diabetes or high blood pressure, according to Reuters.

The risk among men who divorced once was lower, increasing by 10 per cent, while men who divorced twice or more were found to be 30 per cent more at risk of having a heart attack. However, men who remarried had the same lower risk of heart attack as those who had been married continuously to one partner.

"Divorce is a major stressor, and we have long known that people who are divorced suffer more health consequences," said Matthew Dupre, an associate professor of medicine at Duke and the study's lead author. "But this is one of the first studies to look at the cumulative effect of divorce over a long period. We found that it can have a lasting imprint on people's health."

The study was published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.