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- Daily Mail
Women are more likely to survive breast cancer if they are happily married or have close relationships with their friends and family, according to researchers.
Strong bonds with partners, friends, mothers or sisters are crucial to helping them beat the illness, a study suggests.
Sufferers deemed socially isolated were up to 61 per cent more likely to die of the disease within three years of being diagnosed, it found.
Academics believe the emotional support given by partners, friends and family is crucial to helping women beat breast cancer.
In addition, these individuals can also provide practical help such as offering lifts to hospital or simply cooking meals, which can also boost survival odds.
The US researchers point out that it is not necessarily the number of friends and family a woman has which is important. The quality of these relationships also plays a crucial role.
In the first research of its kind, scientists at the Kaiser Permanente research centre in California studied 2,264 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
They were asked whether they had a husband or partner, mother who was still alive, sisters or close friends, and how much support they got from these individuals.
The women’s answers were then given scores to reflect how close they were to their loved ones.
Lead researcher Dr Candyce Kroenke said: “We found women with small social networks had a significantly higher risk of mortality than those with large networks.”
Those classed as socially isolated were 61 per cent more likely to die within three years, the researchers said.
Even when the women were not close to family or friends, but were instead active members of their community or belonged to a church or other religious group, the odds of survival were boosted thanks to these ‘critical’ ties, the experts said.
“This suggests both the quality of relationships – rather than just the size of the network – matters to survival, and community relationships matter when relationships with friends and family are less supportive.”
One in eight women is likely to develop breast cancer in her lifetime.
Nearly 50,000 new cases are diagnosed in the United Kingdom each year, which lead to 11,600 deaths.
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