Having a wife that nags about your diabetes monitoring may benefit your health, even if it puts a strain on your marriage. A study published in the ‘Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences’ observed that compared with happily married peers - men in unhappy marriages are less likely to develop diabetes, and if they do, it arises later and is better managed.

This study, led by Hui Liu, an Associate Professor in Sociology at Michigan State University in East Lansing, used data from the first two waves of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP).The data set analyzed covered 1,228 married men and women who were aged 57-85 at the time of the first wave survey (conducted 2005-2006). At the time of the second wave survey (2010-2011), 389 of the participants had diabetes.

The survey data collected were not specifically designed to assess marital quality, so the researchers used a statistical approach called "factor analysis" to construct positive and negative marital quality scales from relevant survey items. The most surprising finding was that for men, negative marital quality was linked to lower risk of developing diabetes and better management of the disease once diagnosed.

One explanation might be that, because diabetes is a condition that needs careful and constant monitoring, persistent nagging from a wife might boost a husband's health just through effect on health behavior, although it may also appear to increase marital strain over time. For women, it was positive marital quality that was linked to a lower risk of developing diabetes over the course of the study.

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