Want to Avoid a Fight? Eat Some Chocolate

Let’s just be honest about this; we’re never going to need an excuse to enjoy some chocolate. However, if you and you partner find yourselves arguing often, the sweet, delicious treat may help save your relationship. So it’s practically a prescription. Psychology researchers at Ohio State University have found that low blood sugar can make spouses ‘hangry’, that evil combo of hungry and angry. Brad Bushman is lead author of the study, which was released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He said: ‘‘we need glucose for self-control. ''Anger is the emotion that most people have difficulty controlling.'' The study started with the couples completing a relationship satisfaction measure. Researchers then studied over one hundred married couples for a three-week period, measuring their levels of the blood sugar glucose nightly. Then, they asked each participant to stick 0 to 51 pins in a voodoo doll representing his or her spouse, to indicate levels of aggression. The researchers found that the lower the blood sugar levels, the more pins were pushed into the doll. People with the lowest scores pushed in twice as many pins as those with the highest blood sugar levels, Study co-author Richard Pond said there's a good physical reason to link eating to behavior, as the brain, which accounts for only two per cent of body weight, consumes 20 per cent of our calories.