Children of Divorce Face Doubled Stroke Risk

Compared to other kids, children of divorced parents are more than twice as likely to suffer a stroke during their lives, a study suggests. Researchers gathered data from 13,000 subjects in a 2005 Canadian health survey and found that, even when other stroke risk factors, like smoking and obesity, are accounted for, the results stand, notes LiveScience. The study could illustrate the link between childhood stress and health.

This certainly doesn’t mean every child of divorce can expect to have a stroke, a researcher said, and the findings are complicated by the fact that most strokes occur at age 65 or older. Survey respondents that age would have been children at a time when divorce was less common, and likely had very different “context and consequences” from today.
(More health study stories.)