According to a study published online in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, 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 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 studies have suggested there are health benefits from marriage and/or cohabiting, particularly for older adults. There are also various studies that have concluded that type 2 diabetes risk is associated with a number of social health dimensions including social isolation, loneliness, living arrangements, social support, and social network size. .
Blood sugar levels that exceed normal levels can leave us susceptible to various health conditions. For example, having persistently high blood glucose levels can gradually lead to the development of diabetes and may increase your risk of stroke, nerve or kidney damage, eye damage, heart attack, and more. For these reasons, it's important to keep our blood sugar levels in check. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains that individuals can do so by eating a fruit and vegetable-rich diet, getting regular exercise, limiting alcohol consumption, maintaining a healthy weight, and routinely tracking one's blood glucose levels, amongst other methods. Now, a new 2023 study published in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care suggests another potentially effective method for keeping blood sugar levels in check: romantic partnership. Pulling data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, researchers examined the relationship between glycemic levels and marital status, as well as relationship quality, among more than 3,300 adults between the ages of 50 and 89. The data used in the study had been gathered between 2004 and 2013, report. At the start of the study, none of the individuals had been diagnosed with diabetes. During a 10-year follow-up period, participants were asked about their relationship status, and whether they had a spouse, partner, or change in their relationship status.
However, the effects of each specific social health dimension are complex, so a team of researchers from Luxembourg and Canada set out to investigate if there was an association between marital status and marital quality with average glycemic levels in older adults. They used biomarker data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) - a population-based sample of adults aged 50 years and older and their partners, who live in England, from whom data are collected every second year, with biomarker data collected every other wave. The data used for the study was on 3,335 adults aged 50 to 89 years old without previously diagnosed diabetes over a period from 2004 to 2013. The sample was people without pre-existing diabetes between the ages of 50 and 89 years in wave 2 (2004-05) - when biomarker data were first available in ELSA. Pre-existing diabetes was determined by self-reporting.
