Skipping meals can hurt your relationships as well as your waistline

Skipping meals isn't just bad for your health. As it turns out, it can have a detrimental effect on your relationships, too. According to a recent study that appeared online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that lower levels of blood sugar may cause married people to argue with, confront and act more aggressively towards their spouses.

In the study - which involved 107 married couples - voodoo dolls were used to measure the participants' anger with their spouses. Brad Bushman, lead author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University, found a connection between the participants' blood glucose levels and their feelings towards their wife or husband.

"When [the participants] had lower blood glucose, they felt angrier and took it out on the dolls representing their spouse. Even those who reported they had good relationships with their spouses were more likely to express anger if their blood glucose levels were lower," says Bushman.

In another experimental task that was conducted as part of the study and that measured the participants' actions towards their spouse, researchers also uncovered a clear link between low blood sugar levels and aggressive behaviour.

According to Bushman, the study shows how one simple, often overlooked factor - hunger caused by blood glucose levels - may play a role in marital arguments, confrontations and possibly even domestic violence.

"Hangry" - a combination of the words "hungry" and "angry" - was the slang term coined to describe this condition, of being hungry to the point where negative emotions take over.