Marriage Increases Cancer Survival Rate 27%

[Bible_Belt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...of-surviving-cancer-its-not-just-about-money/

Marriage boosts odds of beating cancer — especially if you’re a guy

...researchers Scarlett Lin Gomez of the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and María Elena Martínez of the University of California-San Diego looked at records from a large number of Americans — some 800,000 of them, all adults diagnosed in 2000 to 2009 with invasive cancer. They sliced the data by income, race, insurance status and other factors and found that unmarried cancer patients are suffering from higher death rates than their married counterparts.

Just how big of a difference does being married appear to have on survival? Big, and for both genders, but the impact seems greater for men than women.

According to the analysis, men who were unmarried had a death rate that was 27 percent higher than those who were married. For unmarried women it was 19 percent higher.

 

[BeTheChange]

Selection bias.

Men selected for marriage are more likely to be healthier, have stronger genes, etc.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Interesting. Maybe so.

I am reminded, though, of a famous Civil War diary, from a Union officer at Andersonville, the South's POW camp that was a death mill. They made inmates drink out of the sewer, so almost all of them got dysentery and other water-borne illnesses that killed them. That was before people knew what germs were, but the author was a smart guy. He noticed that the more water people drank, the faster they died. So he hid from the sun during the day so he wouldn't sweat, and he minimized his water consumption.

That guy ended up living through the ordeal, but just barely. He survived over a year. During that time, he said new guys would come in, see everyone dying around them, and they would just lay down and die, sometimes within days. Towards the end, he writes that he could die in ten minutes if he wanted to, but he simply refused.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Men selected for marriage are more likely to be healthier, have stronger genes, etc.

Maybe, but then again, lots of men tend to die quicker after their wives go (in old age) than the other way around.

There's also the "religion effect" where people that belong to religious or other social groups have increased health compared, but then again. (correlation DNE causation)

Does the article say anything about cancer rates (not survival) of married men vs. single men?

 

[samspade]

I'd like to believe married couples eat healthier. But I have nothing to back that up, and in America, who knows.

 

[Desdinova]

Apparently Herpes can help in fighting cancer...

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/herpes-virus-recruited-fight-against-skin-cancer

Moral of the story is, be a manwh0re before you get married

 

[BeTheChange]

Maybe, but then again, lots of men tend to die quicker after their wives go (in old age) than the other way around.

There's also the "religion effect" where people that belong to religious or other social groups have increased health compared, but then again. (correlation DNE causation)

Does the article say anything about cancer rates (not survival) of married men vs. single men?

Will also concede that supportive spouses might be a contributing factor.

A few months back I had the worst flu I've ever experienced in my life. I was out for a solid week. My GF pretty much dropped everything to take care of me. Things could have been a lot worse if she hadn't been there.

 

[zekko]

Selection bias.
Men selected for marriage are more likely to be healthier, have stronger genes, etc.

I would agree with that. I think it's similar to the concept of why taken men are more desirable. I don't think it's "social proof" as much as desirable men are more likely to be taken.

Of course, some on this forum would probably say that the guys with the good genes are alphas, and that alphas never commit, they spend their lives going from flower to flower - that it's the weak betas who get married. But I agree with BeTheChange here.

I'd like to believe married couples eat healthier. But I have nothing to back that up, and in America, who knows.

This makes sense too. Most recipes serve several people. If you're on your own you're more likely to just pick something up. And of course if you have kids you would presumably be conscious of what you're feeding them.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

And then there's this:

Wives become less stressed after their husbands die, study finds

But a new study suggests that widows actually suffer less stress and frailty than wives whose husbands are still alive.

The findings are in contrast to previous research which showedmarriage has a protective effect on health, lowering the risk of a heart attack, depression and increasing the chance of surviving from cancer.

The new study, by the University of Padova, found that while men suffer negative consequences when their wife dies – because they rely more heavily on their spouse - women appear to get healthier.

 

[user43770]

And then there's this:

Wives become less stressed after their husbands die, study finds

Briffault's Law and all that.

 

[zekko]

Wives become less stressed after their husbands die, study finds

Men don't expect to outlive their wives. It's common knowledge that women have a longer life expectancy. Women do expect to outlive their husbands and I'm sure they are planning for that in the back of their mind. So when it happens, it's just the expected natural next step.

I could see how living life for yourself would be less stressful. Women also tend to have greater social support systems in place than men, which is one reason why men don't also benefit from this.