[Health behavior and cardiovascular risk factors in females in relation to their marital status].

This is an overview of the literature analysing the international level of knowledge about the influence of marital status on the prevalence of cigarette smoking, hypertension, hyperlipoproteinemia, obesity, alcohol consumption and type-A-behavior of women. An accumulation of the more behavior-dependent risk factors cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption was found by divorced and of the obesity by never married women. Widowed women scarcely differ from women in other marital status groups in their risk factor profile. The risk factors hypertension and hyperlipoproteinemia hardly correlate with the marital status. The overcome-behavior by loading is discussed as one possible cause of the found correlations. That's why family and social support has got a preventive consequence.