Marriage Helps With Better Blood Sugar Control

Marriage, regardless of its quality, may help in the maintenance of normal blood sugar levels, particularly in older people.

Highlights:

Marriage offers social and health benefits
People who are married appear to be better at controlling their blood sugar levels
Even strained cohabiting relationships may help people avoid high blood sugar levels

People who live with a partner have a higher possibility of being healthy in terms of keeping lower blood sugar levels, regardless of how amicable or combative their relationship is, according to a study published online in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.

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‘People who live with a partner appear to have a higher possibility of sustaining lower blood sugar levels, regardless of how pleasant or combative their relationship is.’

Partnership Provides Social Support and Health Benefits

According to researchers, having a spouse or cohabiting partner may be a significant relationship and source of social support and/or strain for persons in their mid to late-life health.

Previous research has suggested that marriage and/or cohabitation provide health benefits, particularly for older persons. Several studies have also established that the risk of type 2 diabetes is connected with several social health aspects such as social isolation, loneliness, housing arrangements, social support, and social network size.

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Does Marital Status and Marital Quality Affect Blood Sugar Levels?

However, because the impacts of each single social health factor are complex, a group of researchers from Luxembourg and Canada set out to see if there was a link between married status and marital quality and average glycemic levels in older adults.

They employed biomarker data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a population-based sample of persons aged 50 and older, as well as their partners, living in England, from whom data is gathered every other year, with biomarker data acquired every other wave.

The study used data from 3,335 persons aged 50 to 89 years old who had not previously been diagnosed with diabetes from 2004 to 2013.

In wave 2 (2004-05), when biomarker data were initially available in ELSA, the sample consisted of adults without pre-existing diabetes aged 50 to 89 years. Self-reporting was used to determine pre-existing diabetes.

In waves 2 (2004-05), 4 (2008-09), and 6 (2012-13), participants were invited to have a nurse visit following the primary interview, and blood samples were obtained to measure their HbA1c (average glycemic index or blood glucose) levels.

Respondents were also asked if they had a husband, wife, or partner with whom they resided, and questions were posed to assess the level of social strain and social support in their marital/cohabiting relationship.

Several factors were also obtained, including age, income, job, smoking, physical activity, depression, body mass index (BMI), and having different social relationship types in their social network (child, another immediate family, friend).

According to the data, over three-quarters (76%) of respondents in wave 2 (2004-05) were married/cohabiting.

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Relationships Linked with Blood Sugar Levels

Data analysis revealed that those who went through marital transitions (such as divorce) had significant alterations in their HbA1c levels and risk of pre-diabetes.

However, the quality of the relationship did not affect average blood glucose levels, implying that having a supportive or strained relationship was less important than simply having a relationship at all.

The researchers concluded: “Overall, our results suggested that marital/cohabitating relationships were inversely related to HbA1c levels regardless of dimensions of spousal support or strain. Likewise, these relationships appeared to have a protective effect against HbA1c levels above the pre-diabetes threshold. Increased support for older adults who are experiencing the loss of a marital/cohabitating relationship through divorce or bereavement, as well as the dismantling of negative stereotypes around romantic relationships in later life, maybe starting points for addressing health risks, more specifically deteriorating glycemic regulation, associated with marital transitions in older adults.”

Source-Medindia

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