Although some would say, marriage is not for everyone, a new research shows happily married couples have lower blood pressure than single people do.

Professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad, of Brigham Young University, discovered that men and women who are involved in happy marriages scored an average of four points lower on blood-pressure tests than single adults with a good group of supportive friends and relatives.

“There seem to be some unique health benefits from marriage. It’s not just being married that benefits health – what’s really the most protective of health is having a happy marriage,” said Holt-Lunstad, lead author of the study, Reuters reports.

The study involved 204 married people and 99 single adults who wore portable blood-pressure monitors for 24 hours. Most were white, and it is not clear whether the same results would apply to other ethnic groups, Holt-Lunstad added.

The study also reported that blood pressure among happily married people dipped more during sleep than in single people.

"Research has shown that people whose blood pressure remains high throughout the night are at much greater risk of cardiovascular problems than people whose blood pressure dips," Holt-Lunstad said.

However, spouses who had problems in their marriages had higher average blood pressure than single people did.

Hold-Lunstad said the findings could be partly explained by the fact the spouses can promote healthy habits, such as encouraging each other to see a doctor and to eat healthily and also offer each other emotional support in good and bad times.

The study, funded by the Anthony Marchionne Foundation, which supports research on the well-being of people who have never married and by the Brigham Young University’s Family Studies Center, was published in the March 20 issue of the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.