Women’s Choice in a Partner Has Been Linked with Higher Cancer Survival in a New Study

When people get married, they usually do so in hopes that a happy union will enhance their life. Now, there’s good reason to believe that being satisfied in your partnership could also help to extend your life.

Multiple past studies have linked a healthy partnership to more optimal health outcomes. “Literature on health and mortality by marital status has consistently identified that unmarried individuals generally report poorer health and have a higher mortality risk than their married counterparts,” noted a 2012 study published in the journal Maturitas. In many cases, this difference is explained by the variations in living arrangements as people age with or without a partner.

However, a new study, which will be published in the journal Comprehensive Psychoneuroendochronology in November, suggests more direct connections between relationship status, relationship satisfaction, and health outcomes. That research found that among breast cancer survivors, having a high rate of satisfaction in one’s marriage was linked to higher survival rates, fewer ongoing health problems, and less psychological distress.

To complete the study, the team collected 420 assessments of data from 30 subjects with a recent history of breast cancer (stages IA-IIIB), along with their cohabitating partners. Using surveys including The Physical Health Questionnaire, the subjects rated their relationship satisfaction, stress levels, and physical health symptoms.

When they analyzed the data, the team found correlation between relationship satisfaction and physical symptoms, suggesting “mechanistic evidence across psychological, behavioral, and biological pathways that foster each partner’s health and longevity or fuel their disease risk and early mortality.”

“Survivors’ satisfying relationships were linked to improved psychological and physical functioning, as well as lower stress, gut leakiness, and inflammation across treatment. These findings showed that the quality of survivors’ marriages, rather than the marriage itself, was associated with better emotional and physical health in survivorship,” the researchers wrote.

This is not the first study in which the team looked at the relationship between marital status and various health outcomes.

“Even among those without a cancer history, high stress is associated with adverse autonomic, endocrine, and immunological function. Lasting dysregulation across these physiological systems can contribute to chronic disease development, frailty, and accelerated aging,” the team wrote. “Across our [past] work, we demonstrated that couples’ negative conflict and communication predicted each partner’s poorer self-rated health, greater negative emotion, lower heart rate variability, delayed wound healing, and heightened inflammation, heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol; in contrast, couples’ positive communication patterns were associated with each partner’s better health across these self-report and biological markers.”

Having a support system, one that soothes stress instead of causing it, can make a meaningful difference in your health—especially after enduring a serious health challenge like a cancer diagnosis. Nurturing a harmonious bond could help lower your stress, which could in turn have a lasting impact on your physical wellbeing.

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