Dining with someone you love may help the body in surprising ways, new research suggests
Eating with a close partner may influence the body in a surprising way, new research suggests.
While researchers say the effect varies from person to person, a recent study suggests that eating with a loved one impacts how the body regulates blood sugar after a meal.
Participants in the study were given meals containing the same amount and type of carbohydrates, and researchers measured their blood glucose after eating.
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When participants ate together, researchers observed a smaller rise in glucose and a quicker return toward baseline compared with when they ate alone.
The findings, however, do not mean that everyone will experience the same effect.
Shir Atzil, Ph.D., the study's co-author and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, told Fox News Digital that researchers observed substantial individual differences.
"While we observe the principle of social physiology at the population level, we have seen tremendous individual differences in how much individuals benefit or even actually lose from being together — so not everyone benefits the same amount," Atzil said.
"Some people gain a huge benefit from being with their partners," she said.
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"Some people gain a small benefit — and some people actually regulate themselves better when they're alone."
The research, published in the journal Science Advances in late September, was based on a concept known as social physiology, which examines how being near a close partner may affect physiological processes.
Atzil described the theory as suggesting that "our most basic physiological processes, [our] bodily homeostasis, the process of just keeping the body up and running, is actually working more efficiently when we're in proximity with a close partner."
More research is needed to understand why people respond differently, Atzil emphasized.
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She said she plans to continue testing the social physiology theory.
Social setting is also only one of many factors that can affect blood glucose.
Erin Palinski-Wade, a New York-area registered dietitian specializing in diabetes, told Fox News Digital that the amount and type of carbohydrates consumed are particularly important.
She noted that blood sugar can also be affected by factors including stress, sleep, physical activity and a person's surroundings.
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"Stress, whether you had [quality sleep] the night before, how active you were that day, even things like the temperature of the room, noise pollution — all of those things can impact blood sugar," Palinski-Wade said.
Regulating blood sugar after meals is important because persistently elevated glucose can contribute to serious health problems over time, including heart, kidney, eye and nerve damage, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) specifically recommends monitoring glucose two hours after a meal for many people with diabetes — and notes that keeping blood sugar within the target range helps prevent or delay serious health issues.