Single moms at greater risk of heart disease

Washington D.C.: Single working moms, you may want to take extra care of yourselves as according to a recent study, your heart health is most at risk.

Researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, examined data on health, work and marital status for almost 11,000 women in Europe and 6,000 women in the US who were born between 1935 and 1956.

The odds of being a single working mother were twice as high in the US than Europe, they found. In the US, 11 per cent of women had been in that position at some point in their lives, compared to 5 per cent of women in Europe.

Compared with married mothers who worked, single mothers with jobs were 40 per cent more likely to have heart disease and 74 per cent more likely to have a stroke.

They were also 77 per cent more likely to smoke, the study found. The study is published in the American Journal of Public Health.