Obviously, cheating on your spouse is bad for your relationship, but a new study shows that it can also be pretty bad for your health. You would think the most dangerous possibility is that your wife will find out and beat you with a frying pan, but really, the danger comes before, while you’re still in the act.

In case you needed another reason to keep it in your pants, a new study conducted in Italy found that instances of “sudden coital death” are more common while men are having extramarital sex in unfamiliar settings than when they’re getting it on at home with their wives. According to the findings, sleeping around outside the home was associated with “a higher risk of major cardiovascular event,” including fatal heart attacks.

Did you catch that, fellas? Fatal. Heart attack. Guys are less likely to keel over in flagrante with their wives than with their mistresses at some seedy, hourly rate motel.

The study didn’t make any conclusions about the reason for the correlation, but it seems kind of obvious. After a while, sex with your own wife doesn’t exactly get your blood pressure up. And, if a man is cheating on his wife, he’s stressed out about keeping a secret, he’s usually trying to keep up with some younger sex kitten and he may be doing more drinking.

Of course, this isn’t the first study to link cheating with basically having your heart take a hike on you. In fact, in January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention checked the autopsies of more than 5,000 people who died suddenly from heart issues and found that 75 percent of them who died during sex were getting it on the side. And, in 2009, Italian researchers discovered that men in long term extramarital relationships were more likely to “experience a serious heart event” than other men.

Look, guys, we’re willing to let your hearts do the heavy lifting on this. Women would rather not have to bludgeon you with kitchenware. Go ahead, cheat if you need to. Just make sure you carry some nitro tabs with your condoms.

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