Many people know when their blood sugar drops because they might feel shaky and light headed. But did you know that low blood sugar can impact on your behaviour! While people with low blood sugar are known to act inappropriately, and may even appear to be drunk, a new study looks at lower levels of blood sugar in married couples and the impact on fighting.
 
In this newly published study, researchers found that the level of blood sugar actually could predict how angry they would be with their spouse that same evening.
 
The study lasted 3 weeks and found that people who had lower levels of blood sugar were more likely to argue louder and longer with their spouses. As the authors said, many people relate to this by knowing when they are hungry they are cranky.
 
The authors coin the term 'hangry' as a combination of hungry and angry!
 
In the study some 107 married couples were studied. All participants were given a voodoo doll that they were told represented their spouse, along with 51 pins. At the end of each day, for 21 consecutive days, the participants inserted 0 to 51 pins in the doll, depending on how angry they were with their spouse. They did this alone, without their spouses being present, and recorded the number of pins they stuck in the doll.

Each person also used a blood glucose meter to measure glucose levels before breakfast and every evening before bed for the 21 days.

What was found? The lower the participants' evening blood glucose levels, the more pins they stuck in the doll representing their spouse. This association was present even after the researchers took into account the couples' relationship satisfaction.

After the 21 days, the couples came into the laboratory to take part in an experimental task.They were told they would compete with their spouse to see who could press a button faster when a target square turned red on the computer - and the winner on each trial could blast his or her spouse with loud noise through headphones.

The participants were not aware that they actually were  playing against a computer that let them win about half the time.

Each time they "won," the participants decided how loud of a noise they would deliver to their spouse and how long it would last. Their spouses were in separate rooms during the experiment, so participants didn't know they weren't really delivering the noise blast.

Results showed that people with lower average levels of evening glucose sent louder and longer noise to their spouse - even after controlling for relationship satisfaction and differences between men and women.

Further analysis showed that those who stuck more pins in the voodoo doll representing their spouse were more likely to deliver louder and longer noise blasts, as well.

Why does low blood sugar make people more prone to anger and aggression? As the author reports, sugar- glucose- is fuel for the brain. The self-control needed to deal with anger and aggressive impulses takes energy, and that energy is provided in part by glucose.
While the brain is only 2 percent of our body weight, it consumes about 20 percent of our calories.

Moral of the research -- before you have a difficult conversation with your spouse, make sure you're not hungry.