How Unhappy Marriage Cures Type 2 Diabetes

At the beginning of 2016, the Journal of Gerontology published a surprising study that seems to contradict everything scientists thought they knew about the relationship between marriage quality and type 2 diabetes.

Up to then, most scientists thought that a happy marriage improved our health and promoted longer life expectancy.

There were two reasons for thinking this was true.

First, according to the social control theory, spouses encourage each other to adopt healthy habits like exercise and healthy dieting while dissuading them from unhealthy behaviors like smoking and excessive drinking.

Second, according to the stress theory, people in poor marriages are stressed and may be more tempted to overeat, overdrink, and smoke to attempt to cope; they’re more likely to have inflammatory processes triggered by their stress and have sedentary lifestyles triggered by their depression.

But the new study contradicts this.

The researchers from the Universities of Chicago and Michigan used two sets of data collected by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

1,250 married people were interviewed and medically examined in 2005-2006, and again in 2010-2011.

Unsurprising results: Women in happy marriages were less likely to have diabetes than those in unhappy marriages.

Surprising results: Unhappily married men, on the other hand, were less likely to have diabetes than their happily married peers. They were also less likely to have existing diabetes under control if they were in a happy marriage.

In other words, to avoid diabetes or control existing diabetes, women should be in happy marriages, while men should be in unhappy ones?

Researchers speculated that the males who reported being unhappily married may not really have been unhappy; just annoyed by their wives’ attempts to control their health behavior. In reality, the interview could not distinguish properly between genuine marital unhappiness and mild annoyance.

If this is right, women should continue to nag their spouses to engage in healthier behaviors. It will annoy them, but it will improve their health, quite possibly without fatally damaging the relationship.

But why not avoid nagging and negativity altogether and still cure type 2 diabetes?

To cure type 2 diabetes without putting a strain on your marriage, follow the simple diabetes steps here and remain both healthy and happily married…