New research has revealed that being married to someone might reduce your chances of developing type 2 diabetes.
It's previously been suggested in studies that being in a happy and loving marriage comes with several health benefits compared to being single, such as living longer and less chance of having a stroke or heart attack.
Now, experts have claimed that even being in an unhappy marriage could help to keep people's blood sugar levels under control - meaning there's less risk of type 2 diabetes developing and causing health problems. Interestingly, even those in a 'strained' relationship reaped the benefits.
Experts from the University of Luxembourg and the University of Ottawa in Canada examined data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing on 3,335 adults aged 50 to 89 who did not have diabetes at the start of the study.
The study included data gathered from blood samples which measured HbA1c (average blood glucose) levels.
People were asked if they had a husband, wife, or partner with whom they lived and were asked questions to examine the level of strain and support within the relationship.
The data showed that 76% of people in the analysis were married or living together.
Researchers found that the quality of the relationship did not make a significant difference to the average levels of blood glucose, suggesting that having a supportive or strained relationship was less important than just 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."
The findings were published in the BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care journal.
It's estimated that around 4.9 million people in the UK have diabetes, according to the charity Diabetes UK.
And approximately 850,000 people are currently living with type 2 diabetes but don't know that they have it.
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