WORK ON THAT MARRIAGE-IT MIGHT SAVE YOUR LIFE

. 7 health benefits of being in a happy marriage. 

Single and looking for love? Finding it then sticking with your sweetheart may benefit your health in more ways than one, research suggests. A study published Monday in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology found married couples had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol compared with single or divorced participants. Elevated levels of cortisol can lead to inflammation, which is tied to various chronic ailments like heart disease, diabetes and cancer, researchers noted. Turns out, several studies suggest your health can stand to benefit from being in a healthy long-term relationship. Here are a just a handful of ways being in a happy marriage may boost your health: 1. You may be less likely to die of cancer A 2013 study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology of nearly 1.3 million patients diagnosed with various types of cancer found that married men and women were less likely than single people to have disease that had spread, more likely to receive treatment in a timely manner, and less likely to die as a result of their ailment. Men saw a greater overall protective benefit than women, but the association remained true regardless of the type of cancer involved, researchers noted. 2. You may be better protected from heart disease ... Being married may significantly reduce a man's chance of dying from heart disease, a 2007 study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine suggests. After accounting for age, blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, and other lifestyle choices, researchers found that married men were almost half as likely as unmarried men to die 10 years after being diagnosed with heart disease. 3. ... and Stroke Being a single or unhappily married man may increase your risk of fatal stroke, according to a 2010 study conducted by the American Heart Association. Researchers' analysis - which involved about 10,000 Israeli men with an average age of 49 - suggested participants who were dissatisfied with their marriages saw an adjusted risk of fatal stroke that was 64 percent higher than those men who reported having a successful marriage. "I had not expected that unsuccessful marriage would be of this statistical importance," lead author Dr. Uri Goldbourt, a professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at 'Tel Aviv' University in Israel, said.