Bad habits come in pairs

Your partner's flawed health behaviors may be harming your heart.

It's been said that the longer couples stay together the more they look alike. As it turns out, the resemblance may be more than skin-deep. A study published online Oct. 26, 2020, by JAMA Network Open found that couples' health behavior and heart disease risk factors also look alike — for better or worse.

"We know, even from personal experience, that couples share similar behaviors that can affect health, but it was surprising to find the high levels of shared unhealthy behaviors within couples," says the study's lead author, Dov Shiffman, a senior scientific fellow at the medical testing company Quest Diagnostics.