While
your kids may make you feel like they are giving you a heart attack at
times, the opposite may be true. Men who never have children have a
higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than men who are
fathers, according to a study led by the Stanford University School of
Medicine. The research tracked about 135,000 male members of AARP over a
decade to determine how children influence a man's long-term health.
Researchers restricted their subject to those who were either married or
had been married in the past. At the start of the study the men – who
were at an average age of 62.7-years-old – had never been diagnosed with
heart disease or stroke. More than 9 out of 10 of the men had fathered
children. Over the course of the study, about 10 percent of the men
died, with one in every five deaths attributable to cardiovascular
disease. After accounting for factors such as education and heart
disease risk factors, the researchers determined that men who never
reproduced were 17% more likely to have died of heart disease than those
who had even one child.
