While a good marriage can improve your health and happiness, a number of studies have also found that a stressful marriage can hurt your physical health. Now, a small study of 124 participants has found that not only stress, but also feelings of social rejection, can create an inflammatory response that leads to increased arthritis pain. When participants in the study were faced with social rejection, the rejection centers of their brains lit up – and the more rejection participants felt, the more they suffered from increased inflammation.

The researchers associated with the study say that emotionally damaging relationships and social rejection could not only harm those who suffer from arthritis, but could also have bad effects on those who suffer from other types of inflammation problems. However the researchers also reminded readers that their findings correlate emotional rejection and inflammation, but don’t prove causation.