One Tip To Fight Cancer: Get Married

Marriage has always meant a lot of happiness and fewer illnesses. A new benefit that can be added to the list includes protection from cancer, especially in some ethnic races.

Experts from the University of California San Diego tried to examine how marital status can influence cancer survival, by studying the differences in ethnicity. Male non-Hispanic white singles seemed to undergo the "the worst" cancer outcomes, with 24 percent.

Unmarried women also tended to suffer worse cancer outcomes compared to married women. But the study also showed that the cancer outcome difference was obvious among men while unmarried non-Hispanic white females showed a 17 percent increase in mortality and single Asian/Pacific Islander females showed a 6 percent increase in cancer death compared to married peers.

"Oncologists should be aware that an increase in cancer mortality is a real outcome among unmarried individuals," said María Elena Martínez, a UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center Sam M. Walton Endowed Chair for Cancer Research, who led the study. "Physicians treating unmarried patients should ask if there is someone within their social network available to help the individual physically and emotionally during treatment. More attention should be paid to this consistent and adverse health effect of being unmarried."

Moreover, those born outside the United States displayed better rates of cancer survival.

"The results suggest that the more acculturated you become to U.S. culture, the more it impacts cancer survivorship," said Martínez, co-director of the Reducing Cancer Disparities research program at Moores Cancer Center. "Our hypothesis is that non-Hispanic whites don't have the same social network as other cultures that have stronger bonds with family and friends outside of marriage. As individuals acculturate they tend to lose those bonds."

"It's also been shown that women seek out help for health concerns more frequently than men, and women tend to remind spouses to see their physicians and live a healthy lifestyle," she added.

"Research is needed to understand the specific reasons behind these associations so that future unmarried patients can receive interventions to increase their chances of survival," concluded  Martinez.

The findings are published in the journal Cancer.