The title of the popular 80s classic pop song from Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to do With It?” can be answered – plenty. Especially when it comes to heart health.

According to a research article by Scripps.org, “How Love Affects Your Heart,” the feeling of love may be beneficial to heart health.

One theory on why love is good for your health is that blood pressure responds to calmness and peace,” asserted cardiologist Christopher Suhar MD, director of Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine. “If you’re in love, you’re calmer and more at peace, which could translate into lower blood pressure.”

Dr. Suhar also mentioned studies suggesting that married people are more likely to survive and recover faster from cardiovascular events compared to those who are not married. He said, “Men tend to gain more of a cardiovascular benefit from marriage than women do, but on a whole, marriage helps you live longer.”

Love for heart benefit is not restricted to the romantic kind. Enjoying close relationships with family members and friends can also provide cardiovascular wellness benefits.

In his book, “Heart: A History,” cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar MD, points out that the heart is indeed sensitive to one’s emotional environment, especially those stemming from relationships. He believes that care that involves emotions and love will be more commonplace in his profession.

“We know that patients who develop intense grief can develop acute congestive heart failure,” Jauhar told TODAY.com, [“What causes heart disease? How love affects heart health” by A. Pawlowski, Feb. 14, 2019]. “People who have unhealthy or difficult relationships, that can cause chronic low-level stress, which can also accelerate heart disease… so we need to focus more on the metaphorical heart and less on the biomechanical heart to continue to make the kinds of advances that we have made in the last 50-60 years.”

So yes, love has a lot to do with it – “it” being heart health.

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