marriage advice

Photo: Thinkstock

2 of 8
You Eat Burgers at the Wrong Time
We all know that creamy-buttery-lardy-cheesy stuff is bad for heart health. But Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Ronald Glaser, researchers at Ohio State University, think that high-saturated-fat foods may also hurt your relationship. In an ongoing study, they’re asking married couples to eat meals in the lab—one of the greasy-burger variety; the other, veggie-heavy. Once finished, the couples are encouraged to discuss vein-popping topics: money, in-laws, housework, and how to raise the kids. Based on their previous research, the researchers have a hunch that the participants’ blood samples will show that fatty foods enhance the body’s stress response to marital spats. Eat unhealthily and your argument may spiral out of control more easily and you may run a higher risk of cardiac disease, inflammation, and diabetes over time. Any way you look at a fatty diet, it’s bad for your heart. (Stay tuned; the study ends in 2014.)