Okay, this is too much. What good did these researchers perform by investigating this link? These stroke-prone individuals cannot go back and ask their parents not to get a divorce so they won't be at risk of stroke. Could these researchers have used their resources to investigate other risk factors so we could all think about implementing strategies to reduce our risk of stroke? I think so. If not, perhaps they could do research in another field. I wonder, did they control for the number of divorces their parents had?
I am really upset by this news. Not because an association was found, but because an association that no one understands and no one can reduce was supposedly found. Now someone else will have to do more research to refute it. (or repudiate it, as Ms Palin would have it.)
Picture a Cathy AAaaaargh! here.
Here is the article that ignited my ire:
http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/22/do-kids-of-divorce-have-strokes-more-often/
1 comment:
hahaha - favorite line of this for me was when they mentioned all the factors they COULDN'T measure/control for. So many as to make it basically useless.
Two things that immediately come to mind for me:
1. money problems/ disagreements/ poor communication is the main instigator of relationship stress and breakdown. Since poverty is also a determinate for overall health (less money = poorer food or no food), that's just as likely an underlying cause. Also, divorce and lack of child support coupled with the consistent gender wage gap can do the same thing.
2. Long term emotional and mental stress is a precursor to high blood pressure and strokes. If that stress starts early, that long term effect is present earlier. My guess is that the same researchers could have also tracked children of alcoholics, drug addicts, mentally ill and physically abusive parents and found similar corollaries. If however divorcing parents were taught better communication skills and were focused on creating a stable environment for their children throughout the process of divorce, I imagine that stress wouldn't be so pervasive. If the couple was dedicated to clear and respectful communication with one another through the process of divorce, that would likely go a huge way towards their children's health. Kids pick up everything, and developmentally are prone to take everything on as their fault/responsibility. More responsible parenting and communication is important. People try to hide things from kids - as though they aren't already tracking all of the nuances of parental communication. If a dog can pick up hundreds of expressions from humans with no language skills entirely based on body communication, why do people think the rest of us aren't doing it all the time with each other? Its not intuition, its observation, just not on an entirely verbal level.
Lastly - I can totally see this study being manipulated to frame a right wing bible thumper politician argument on sanctity of marriage couched in pseudo-science.
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