For the heart is bad to have three wives – BBC

Scientists from Saudi Arabia found that polygamous men are four times more likely than monogamous suffer from cardiovascular disease. The reason – the worries and hassle associated with polygamy.

Polygyny or polygamy – is a form of marriage in which the man is in the marriage alliance with several women. In 2008, researchers from Arizona found that polygamy has reduced the diversity of male chromosomes and genetic material is made shall, at the parental line, leaner.

«All human beings are descended from apes, which were completely polygamous. In the evolutionary sense, man was monogamous recently, “- says Michael Hammer, one of the participants in the study, published in the journal PLoS Genetics.

Now, scientists from Saudi Arabia found , which may polygyny lead to serious cardiovascular diseases.

A new study says that husbands and wives who have taken several girls are four times more prone to heart problems than those who are confined to a single chosen one.

«We have found a link between the number of spouses and the number of coronary artery disease,” – says Amin Daula, a cardiologist at the Research Center King Faisal and one of the study’s authors. According to Daul, this may be due to the fact that in polygamous husbands should support more households, and it is difficult both financially and emotionally.

The study involved 687 men who were treated for heart failure in five hospitals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Among these, 68% had one wife, 19% – two, at 10% – three, in 3% – four. The average age of the men was 59 years, more than half of the study participants suffered from hypertension and diabetes, half had previous cardiovascular disease.

In the study, researchers found that polygamous men 4.6 times more likely than monogamous, there was a risk of narrowing of the coronary arteries.

«It is known that prolonged stress in family life increases the risk of coronary heart disease,” – said Michelle Komadzha, former president of the European Society of Cardiology and one of the study’s authors. According to scientists, it would be interesting to conduct a study on the impact of polygyny on the number of heart disease among women.

According to the Koran, a man who married a few girls obliged to take care of all the wives equally and properly. “It is likely that the stress of caring for multiple wives, and sometimes – a few families with children, is enormous,” – said Amin Daula.

However, the researchers found no cause-and-effect relationship between heart disease and polygamous marriages. It is possible that other, hidden factors such as the level of intimacy in marriage, eating habits or genetics may play an important role in this regard.

Earlier, the British researchers found that among men and women is quite high percentage of supporters of polygamous relationships. Only slightly more than half of men and as many women, on average prefer one partner more.

However, some experts argue that polygamy is evolutionarily beneficial for men but not for women. The fact that polygamous men leave a lot more offspring than monogamous, whereas a woman can not give birth to children more than once every nine months.

The advantage of children from monogamous families is that they do not have to share the pope with children born from another woman. Studies show that the average polygamy wife give birth to fewer children than monogamous marriages. Moreover, polygamy can cause interpersonal conflicts: for example, a study in 2012 showed that in polygamous societies, there is more violence, poverty and gender inequality.