Hot MedFax

Well, this is encouraging.  Did you know that when your partner is under stress , you gain weight? Really.  Isn't that depressing?  But according to a new study, older adults gain weight when a spouse is stressed out. Oh my.  A new University of Michigan study looked at how the negative quality of marriage can be detrimental for weight gain—possibly leading to obesity—when couples 50 and older are stressed. The results varied by gender, newswise.com reports. The study specifically focused on chronic stress, which is an ongoing circumstance occurring for more than a year and threatens to overwhelm an individual's resources, such as financial problems, difficulties at work or long-term care-giving. The sample included 2,042 married individuals who completed questions about their waist circumference, negative marriage quality, stress levels and other factors in 2006 and 2010. Couples were married for an average of 34 years. Greater negative quality ...

So you think you're drawn to liberal, social-cause-minded politicians because you love Hillary?  Nah.  It was in you all along. According to a new study, our desire for like-minded others is actually hard-wired in us and it controls our choices in friends and partners.  (Though maybe not in my house.  My husband has become a Fox News-lover and somehow, we're still married.) But, in what might be considered a paradigm shift, the study’s most surprising finding may be that people in relationships do not change each other over time. Instead, researchers' evidence places new emphasis on the earliest moments of a relationship—revealing that future friends or partners are already similar at the outset of their social connection, a major new finding, say the authors. "Picture two strangers striking up a conversation on a plane, or a couple on a blind date,” says Assistant Professor of Psychology Angela Bahns (Wellesley College).  “From the very first mome...

This fall, a friend's husband died of cancer after being diagnosed four months earlier.  Even though the end came so quickly, they were able to plan for a peaceful death at home, surrounded by loved ones. Now a new study says you will die as you live, but for surviving spouses, you will live as your partner died. Say what? A person's quality of life at the time of their death continues to influence his or her spouse's quality of life in the years following the person's passing, according to new research by University of Arizona psychologists, reports newswise.com. What's more, the association between a deceased and surviving spouse is just as strong as the association between partners who are both living, the researchers found. I'm sure my friend finds herself just as married to her spouse now as she was before his death. "If your partner has higher quality of life before they pass away, you're more likely to have higher quality of l...

Stand on one leg while telling your partner why you love him. Can't? Your relationship may be in trouble. According to Gretchen Reynolds of The New York Times, your stance may test your marriage. Say what? A new study has shown that how much stability you have on your feet may tell oodles about where your relationship is going.  Balancing on one leg may test the stability not just of your body but also of your marriage or other intimate relationships, according to a remarkable new study of how bodily posture may affect emotional thinking. I took an aerobics class a while ago that had one movement where you pulled one leg up behind your back and held it with the other arm.  For weeks I couldn't do it, and then, one day, I could.  I remember the feeling of being shocked that I couldn't do it.  And come to think of it, my marriage wasn't in such great shape in those days.  I'm not sure I totally buy it but supposedly how much balance you ha...

My husband watches Fox News.  He loves Bill O'Reilly.  Mike Huckabee, too.  He's against allowing immigrants to remain in this country.  And he's not too crazy about the Affordable Care Act, or President Obama. We don't see eye-to-eye on anything. So how are we still together?  I like him. I wouldn't have said that  half our relationship ago.  In the beginning, there were many years when it was a competition.   Who could win first? But then, life intervened.  We had a child, I got cancer, our mothers both developed serious illnesses and died.  And suddenly winning didn't seem the point anymore. Of course, everything isn't perfect.  He still makes me furious, pretending he doesn't hear me when I ask him to take out the garbage or vacuum the family room floor.  He still comes home and drops his coat on the floor (as does our son now, too). And his idea of a birthday gift (even a big one) is well, a card, if I'...

Want to know if your spouse is cheating?  Forget the lipstick on the collar or the cologne in her hair.  Now researchers say it's all in the  voice . According to newswise.com, our voices give us away every time, and the Web site cites new research by   Albright College associate professor of psychology Susan Hughes, Ph.D., who has found that "men and women alter their voices when speaking to lovers versus friends and that such variations can potentially be used to detect infidelity." “It’s not just that we change the sound of our voice, but that others can easily perceive those changes,” newswise.com quotes Hughes, an expert in evolutionary psychology and voice perception, who wrote about this in a new article, “People Will Know We Are in Love: Evidence of Differences Between Vocal Samples Directed Toward Lovers and Friends.” The study looked at how individuals alter their voices, or engage in voice modulation, when speaking to romantic partners versus same-se...

It's a weird thing but a new study has found that partners of people in pain often sleep badly when their partners are in pain. It's not because their partners toss and turn trying to get comfortable. T he partners were most likely just reacting empathically to their loved one's pain (bet we're talking women, here). The ones in pain sleep fine. My husband has been haunted by knee problems for most of his adult life.  A competitive tennis player from way back, his knee was injured in a match and, against better advice, he had his meniscal tear operated on -- and it was never the same again.  I can't say that I don't sleep well when he's in pain, but I do worry about him and wish he could have more healing. The study found that t he effects the patients' pain had on spousal sleep "were not a result of their own disturbances in sleep," the researchers said,according to medicalnewstoday.com. In other words, you're lying wide awake wh...