Bridget's single health warning

It could be another gloomy entry in Bridget Jones's diary. Being single can be almost as damaging to your health as smoking, according to new research.

Smoking is said to wipe five years from the average person's life, while being single reduces life expectancy by more than three years.

Unmarried people, especially women similar to Bridget Jones in the hit film, addicted to smoking in their "singleton" lifestyle as they desperately try to land the right man, are doubly at risk.

Professor Andrew Oswald of Warwick University said that, by contrast, marriage makes you healthier, live longer and even get paid on average £3,000 a year more.

Professor Oswald added: "Even we have been startled by the size of the marriage effect on mortality risk."

He said the conventional explanation is that marriage lowers stress and worry - "presumably because sharing worries halves them". Another factor is that married people smoke less and eat in a healthier way.

Living together is better than living alone and brings some physical and mental health benefits, he said, but not as many as getting married.