February 7, 2023 – New research suggests that living with a spouse or partner may help middle-aged and older adults keep their blood sugar levels under control.
And it doesn't even need to be a really perfect connection. Just the existence of a relationship seems to bring advantages, no matter whether partners described it as supportive or strained.
Katherine J. Ford, PhD, of the Department of Psychology at Carleton University in Ontario, Canada, led the study, which was published online today within the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research and Care.
The team used data from 2004 to 2013 from greater than 3,000 people within the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a sample of adults in England aged 50 to 89 and their partners.
The subjects studied had not been diagnosed with diabetes and were asked over a period of ten years whether or not they were married, married or living together and whether their partnership status had modified.
Ford says they found improvement – a median 0.2% decrease in HbA1c (a measure of average blood sugar levels over a three-month period) – when participants entered into marriage or civil partnership, and deterioration – on this case a 0.2% increase in HbA1c – once they left such a relationship.
To put the ends in some context, the researchers say other work has suggested that reducing the common HbA1c level by 0.2 percent “would reduce excess mortality by 25 percent.”
Possible reasons for the profit
Why might marital status affect blood sugar?
According to Ford, previous studies point to several reasons: “When people experience stress in their lives, the social support of another person can often help reduce that stress.”
Perhaps sharing the prices of accommodation, food and insurance may also reduce stress, she says.
“One partner may be more interested in healthy eating and that can, through osmosis, influence the other partner's lifestyle,” says Ford.
Lower blood sugar levels as a marital advantage
Other health advantages of living with a partner, especially in old age, have been well documented in other studies. And studies have linked the danger of type 2 diabetes to lack of social support, loneliness and isolation.
However, because these aspects are complex and fewer easy to trace, the team focused on easily measured blood glucose levels.
They took into consideration aspects that would affect the outcomes, similar to whether participants were retired or working and whether or not they had depression or changes in body mass index, as this could change because strenuous physical activity can develop into tougher with age.
The authors indicate that this was an observational study and subsequently the study cannot prove that marital status results in differences in blood sugar levels.
However, a strength of the study is that the precise measurement of HbA1c was used because the end result slightly than a measurement based on self-reported data.
One limitation is that the database, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, includes mostly white participants. Therefore, it just isn’t clear whether the study's conclusions would apply to other races, says Ford.
Use of knowledge
The data may include messages for middle-aged and older adults and their physicians.
“When someone goes through a marital change – whether they have lost their partner or are going through a divorce or separation – it may be important for the doctor to check these biomarkers, such as HbA1c,“, says Ford.
“We should also support older people when they want to enter into romantic relationships and new partnerships,” she says.