Husbands, don't feel too annoyed if your wife prods you about your health as studies have found a link with lower rates of diabetes.
Dr. Hui Liu, an expert in population-based health and family science, undertook the study to determine whether marital 'quality' had an impact on diabetes risk management and control, reported the Daily Mail.
The study was published in the Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences and made use of data from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project looking at 1,228 married respondents over a period of five years. At the end of the study, 389 had diabetes.
"The most surprising finding was that, for men, an increase in negative marital quality lowered the risk of developing diabetes and increased the chances of managing the disease after its onset. Diabetes requires frequent monitoring that the wives could be prodding the husband to do, boosting his health but also increasing marital strain over time," Hui said.
"The study challenges the traditional assumption that negative marital quality is always detrimental to health. It also encourages family scholars to distinguish different sources and types of marital quality. Sometimes, nagging is caring," she explained.
For the women, the study determined that good relationships lowered the risk of developing the disease. It determined that because women were more sensitive to the quality of the relationship, their health often reflected their feelings about the relationship.
The study is significant given the rising number of adults who suffer from diabetes. Based on World Health Organization data, the number of those who have developed the disease in the past four decades have quadrupled to 422 million. It is also considered as the seventh leading cause of death in the United States alone.
