Shared meals linked to lower post-meal blood sugar

Eating dinner solo may heighten depression risk

[Getty Images Bank]
[Getty Images Bank]

As single-person households grow in number and digital and AI services reduce face-to-face interaction, concerns are mounting that frequently eating alone could take a toll on both physical and mental health.

A notable recent study from Israel found that post-meal blood sugar responses can differ depending on whether a person eats alone or with someone close to them. The findings were published in September in the international journal Science Advances.

A joint research team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Sheba Medical Center conducted an experiment with 108 healthy adults and found that eating the same carbohydrate-based meal with a close companion produced a post-meal blood sugar response 15 percent lower than eating alone. Blood sugar also returned to normal levels more quickly.

The researchers interpreted the findings through the lens of "social physiology" — the study of how social relationships affect the body's physiological processes. Close social bonds, they argued, can reduce the physical burden of regulating blood sugar, body temperature and stress.

"Blood sugar regulation is not just a matter of what you eat, but also who you eat with," the team said, adding that "being close to loved ones helps the body function better."

Separate research has also examined the link between dining companions and metabolic syndrome, of which elevated blood sugar is a key component.

A 2018 joint Korean-American study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health analyzed 8,988 adults. Using a group that ate all three meals with others as the control, the researchers divided participants who ate alone into seven groups based on which meals — breakfast, lunch or dinner — they consumed solo.

The results showed that men who ate dinner alone were 1.5 times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than the control group. Among middle-aged men between 40 and 64, those who ate all three meals alone had a metabolic syndrome prevalence of 50 percent — the highest of any meal-pattern group in that age bracket.

On the mental health front, multiple studies have linked solo dining to depressive symptoms. A paper from Seoul National University Hospital, published in the Korean Journal of Family Medicine in 2021, found that depressive symptoms were more common among those who ate dinner alone. That group showed odds of depressive symptoms — measured as the ratio of those with symptoms to those without — that were 42 percent higher than among those who dined with others. The association was stronger in men.

Of course, some people find eating alone perfectly comfortable. Experts stress that solo dining is not inherently problematic, but that frequent solitary meals can deepen feelings of depression in people who already feel lonely.

Shared meals are also recognized as a core element of the traditional Mediterranean diet, widely regarded as one of the world's healthiest eating patterns. When UNESCO added the Mediterranean diet to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2010, it cited the culture of eating together — not just the ingredients — as a defining feature.

Shin Jae-hyun, a psychiatrist and director of a mental health clinic in Gangnam, said that sharing a meal with someone close and exchanging everyday conversation offers "an opportunity to feel a sense of belonging and emotional stability — the feeling that you are connected to someone." He added that "the attention and empathy exchanged at the table can ease loneliness and stress, and can also help break the vicious cycle of withdrawing from others and becoming isolated when feeling depressed."


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