Wedding band may be powerful medicine against cancer, study suggests

A latest study has suggested that a wedding band could be an effective treatment against cancer as married individuals have reportedly witnessed better life expectancy after cancer diagnosis.

Study researchers found that married people apparently have a marked survival benefit. They found that male cancer patients who are single had a death rate 27% higher in comparison to that for married male patients. In the case of women, the death rate for single female patients was 19% more in comparison to married counterparts.

Study author Scarlett Lin Gomez, a research scientist with the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, said that effects found by them were in reality very significant. Gomes said that they were comparable to a few of the more clinical factors often seen linked to cancer prognosis, such as disease stage or certain kinds of treatment.

Gomez said that besides this, the advantage seems to depend only on the emotional bonds of matrimony, and not the monetary advantages that come along with marriage.

Furthermore, Gomez said, “These patterns were very minimally explained by married patients having greater economic resources. Specifically, we looked at health insurance and we looked at living in a higher socioeconomic status neighborhood. Even though these played small role, they really didn't explain greater survival among the married”.

It is noteworthy that the study has only found a link between marital status and cancer prognosis, and hasn’t proved a cause-and-effect association.

Gomez added that the studies performed in the last 10 to 15 years have shown a similar benefit of marriage for cancer patients, but the advantage has always been chalked up to the love and support an individual gets from their spouse.

She said that people who are married also tend to have higher combined income and better access to insurance. She along with her colleagues then decided to determine if money played a role in the survival benefit of married couples or not.

According to a report in Washington News Wire by Kevin B. Atencio, "Married people with cancer have better survival odds than their single peers – and not for money reasons, a U.S. study suggests.

Unmarried men were 27 percent more likely to die of their tumors, and single women were 19 percent more likely, the study found."

“It seems that the major contributing factor is greater social support, and less social isolation, among married patients,” said study leader Scarlett Lin Gomez of the University of California, San Diego. “Having a strong support system can have meaningful impacts on the odds of survival after a cancer diagnosis,” Lin added by email.

"The University of California San Diego (UCS) report, published Monday in the journal Cancer, shows that the chances of surviving cancer when married are higher than if single. But the study's authors also stressed that sex, race, ethnicity and birthplace have a key role in determining a patient's survival," according to a news report published by SCMP.

"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," said Dr. Maria Elena Martinez, lead author of the study and professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at UCS' School of Medicine.

In a report published by the NY Times, "The risk of death among unmarried men was 27 percent higher, and among unmarried women 19 percent higher, than among the married. But even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors, unmarried men still had a 22 percent higher mortality risk and unmarried women a 15 percent higher risk than the married."

“Across different racial and ethnic groups we were able to analyze whether economic resources played a role,” said the lead author, Scarlett Lin Gomez, a research scientist at the Cancer Prevention Institute in Fremont, Calif. “In fact, they play a very minimal role. It points more to social support as the defining factor.”