Scientists say they may have found the key to surviving cancer: marriage.<\/p>\n
Married people with cancer were 20% less likely to die from their disease, compared to people who are separated, divorced, widowed or never married, according to study published online Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.<\/p>\n
Married people in the study fared better than singles no matter what type of cancer. In certain types of tumors \u201d\u201d prostate, breast, colorectal, esophageal and head\/neck cancers \u201d\u201d the survival benefits of marriage were larger than those from chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
“Improving social support for our patients may be equally important as providing effective therapy, and it is less costly to develop and implement,” said senior author Paul Nguyen, a radiation oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in a statement.<\/p>\n