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Being in a relationship, whether or not it’s happy one, could help keep a person’s blood sugar relatively low.
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“I would speculate that marriage and cohabitating partnerships require a particular emotional investment over a long period of time,” Katherine Ford, the study’s author, said.
“The salience of this type of relationship likely means that the loss of it may have implications for health, such as average blood sugar levels.”
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The study looked at 3,335 adults, between 50 and 89 years olds, who were not diagnosed with diabetes over the course of nine years (2004 to 2013).
Of the group, three-quarters of the respondents were either married or cohabitating with someone.
The nearly 76% were also asked about the level of strain in their relationship.
The scientists were able to determine that being in a relationship, no matter how much or little it was strained, tends to keep a person’s blood sugar on the lower end.
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Participants met with a nurse once a year to take an HbA1c test, a common test used to measure blood sugar levels.
“Overall, our results suggested that marital/cohabitating relationships were inversely related to HbA1c levels regardless of dimensions of spousal support or strain,” concluded the study.
“Likewise, these relationships appeared to have a protective effect against HbA1c levels above the pre-diabetes threshold.”