Being married may significantly improve the likelihood of surviving cancer, researchers say.
In a new study of more than 700,000 people with diagnoses of the most deadly cancers in the United States, patients who were married were more likely to detect their disease early, receive potentially curable treatments and live longer. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The researchers observed a 20% reduction in deaths among the patients who were married compared to unmarried patients – a benefit bigger than several kinds of chemotherapy used for treating cancer.
“It is pretty astonishing,” Dr. Paul Nguyen, the study’s senior author, said. “There’s something about the social support that you get within a marriage that leads to better survival.”
Source: CNN
