It's pretty well known that marriage is good for your health, and now a new study says those health benefits run bone deep.
Using data from 632 U.S. adults, researchers from UCLA sought to discover a link between bone mineral density (BMD) -- which decays over time and leads to osteoporosis -- and a person's marital life history. The results were published in the online journal Osteoporosis International.
Researchers found that marriage had positive outcomes on BMD, especially for married men, who exhibited better bone mineral density than men who were widowed, separated, divorced or never married. This was especially true for men who married after the age of 25.
For women, the results were mixed. Marriage itself did not lead to healthier bones, but a good marriage did. Specifically, women who reported having supportive spouses who truly cared about them had stronger bones.
"In women, the quality of the marriage was more important than just being married, consistent with previous findings that women unhappily married suffer more distress than those never married," wrote the authors.
There are other health benefits of marriage, aside from strong bones. Studies in the past have shown that married people are less likely to get pneumonia, develop cancer and have heart attacks, the New York Times reported.