How a heart broken by grief could send you to an early grave

Scientists found that when one partner in a long-term relationship dies, the survivor has a 27 per cent greater chance of succumbing to potentially fatal illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.

Academics have long suspected that those who lose their spouses are likely to follow them to the grave shortly after.

Previous studies have put the phenomenon down either to couples sharing lifestylerelated risks, such as poor diet or smoking, or to the shock and stress of their loved one passing away.

But the latest study, carried out by the University of Glasgow and to be published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health next month, looked at the fortunes of thousands of couples since the 1970s and found bereavement itself is an extra risk factor.

It suggested extra support should be given to bereaved spouses.

Stewart Wilson, an executive director of counselling charity Cruse Bereavement Care, said the study shows how much we underestimate the impact of losing a loved one.

"In a way it is the last taboo," he added. "People will talk about their sex lives or how much money they make before they will talk about being bereaved.

"When a couple have been together a long time, the incidence of long-term survival is relatively low for the other partner."

Mr Wilson said that, while there is the romantic ideal of loving partners dying because they could not go on without each other, those who had been in bad marriages can also find it difficult to cope.

He added: "Where the relationship has been difficult, that is sometimes even harder to deal with, because there are unfinished issues.

"The people you think were so happy together sometimes do better then the people who weren't particularly happy together." Cathy Ross, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said that common ways of coping with bereavement often lead to health problems.

"Some people will smoke more, other people may drink more and they tend not to eat or to eat really badly," she added.

"It is really about how we cope with the bereavement, rather than the process of grief itself."

The theory might explain why some couples seemed unable to live without one another - notably the country singer Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash, who died within months of one another.

Mrs Carter Cash died at 73 after heart surgery in May 2003, while Mr Cash passed away in September later that year from complications related to diabetes at the age of 71.

Former Labour prime minister James Callaghan died at the age of 92 in 2005, just ten days after his beloved wife Audrey.

Lord Callaghan died in the same hospice that cared for the woman to whom he had been married for 67 years.