Coupling Sickness: Do Couples Share the Same Illnesses Too?

Couples normally share many things together, such as the same bed, even utensils and mannerisms. However, recent scientific findings reveal that couples share something that is not that nice - their sickness. In the British Medical Journal, it has been found out in a survey of 8,000 English couples that a person has a high risk of developing the same sickness as their partner. Conditions such as clinical depression, ulcers, high blood pressure, asthma, and high cholesterol seem to run in couples.

Some of these can be explained. The report suggests that couples are usually exposed to the same pathogens and allergens at home, which explains having infections or asthma in pairs. Couples, of course, normally have the same diet, and have similar health habits, which account for their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Certainly, depression is quite contagious in a sense, and people feel bad when their pair feels bummed. However, for some illness like ulcers, these explanations cannot hold. Ulcers, for one, are caused by bacteria that are not contagious.

Nonetheless, these findings have useful implications. For one, it is important to have a check-up when one's partner gets sick. One should also cultivate a healthy home atmosphere - one that is cheerful and nurturing. Special consideration must also be given to diet, and couples should exercise together in order to make these healthy habits mutually reinforcing.

Couples should take time to discuss their feelings, and have activities that would reduce the chances for getting depressed. In fact, these prescriptions for better health are good enough to be tips to having a great marriage. This only leads one to a conclusion that staying together, as well as being healthy, needs some adjustments from each other, and is a lifelong quest. Couples must inculcate some habits that would lead to a healthy marriage, and long life.