Washington: Handshake, considered one of the most common and ancient ways of greeting someone, says a lot about your personality, especially your marital status. Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Columbia Aging Center have found that men with a stronger grip were more likely to be married than men with weaker grips.
Grip strength is an established measure of health and has previously been linked to one's ability to cope independently and predicts the risk of cardiovascular diseases and mortality, said the study, published recntly in the journal SSM-Population Health. "Our results hint that women may be favouring partners who signal strength and vigour when they marry," said Vegard Skirbekk, PhD, professor, Columbia Aging Center and Mailman School professor of Population and Family Health. "If longer-lived women marry healthier men, then both may avoid or defer the role of caregiver, while less healthy men remain unmarried and must look elsewhere for assistance."
Using a population-based study of 5,009 adults from the Norwegian city of Tromsø, the researchers examined the relationship of marital status to grip strength in two successive groups of people: those born 1923-35 and 1936-48, assessing the association between respondents' marital status and grip strength when respondents were aged 59 to 71. Grip strength is particularly important for older adults, and has implications for a host of health risks, including heart disease, fractures, physical mobility, the capacity to be socially active and healthy, and enjoy a good quality of life. At the same time, marriage confers many of these same benefits.
The researchers found greater number of unmarried men with low grip strength in the second cohort -- those born 1936-48 -- than in the first cohort, reflecting societal trends that have increasingly de-emphasised the importance of marriage. "In recent decades, women are less dependent on men economically. At the same time, men have a growing 'health dependence' on women," ScienceDaily quoted Dr Skirbekk as saying. "The fact that many men are alone with a weak grip -- a double burden for these men who lack both strength and a lack of support that comes from being married -- suggests that more attention needs to be given to this group, particularly given their relatively poor health," Dr Skirbekk added.(UNI )