Concordance for coronary risk factors among spouses

Values for several coronary risk factors, including systolic and diastolic blood pressure, serum cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, uric acid, hemoglobin, weight, vitral capacity and cigarette smoking have been found to be similar among spouses in the Framingham Study. However, longitudinal analyses show that this spouse concordance does not increase over a twelve-year observation period, suggesting that it has arisen through the marriage of similar people rather than through the sharing of a common marital environment. Apparent conflicts between cross-sectional and longitudinal findings have been resolved by showing that spouses who were concordant at the begining of the study are more likely to survive to later exams, while discordant spouse pairs tend to be dissolved through the death of one of their members.