Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Friends Can Help You Survive Breast Cancer (Science)

There's no Christmas in breast cancer but there may be some in the knowledge researchers discovered your chances of recovery from it are better if you have a large number of social connections.  (Science Daily:  Women with more social connections have higher breast cancer survival, study shows)

In a large Kaiser Permanente study of women with invasive breast cancer, socially integrated women -- those with the most social ties, such as spouses, community ties, friendships and family members -- were shown to have significantly lower breast cancer death rates and disease recurrence than socially isolated women.  This study was published in the American Cancer Society journal Cancer.

- Science Daily

The Rockhouse is the last place to espouse the value social networks since we see the opposite in terms of news filtering, etc but we don't want to throw out any science which may say there's some good in them.  The above does not mention social networks but those connections seem an obvious association and make of that what you will.


The objective in this article is to present it straight-up rather than looking for any flaws and shooting at them.  The source article has considerably more information about the situation and you're invited to continue there with any reading.

"The types of social ties that mattered for women with breast cancer differed by sociodemographic factors including race/ethnicity, age and country of origin," Kroenke noted. "Ultimately, this research may be able to help doctors tailor clinical interventions regarding social support for breast cancer patients based on the particular needs of women in different sociodemographic groups."

The study builds on previous research by Kroenke and colleagues who found that positive social interactions are related to higher quality of life in breast cancer patients; high-quality personal relationships are related to better survival; and larger networks are related to healthy lifestyle factors.


- Science Daily


Breast cancer is bad but it seems the possible death sentence comes when it metastasizes and spreads through the body.  There was additional research lately which, regrettably, people didn't read too much and that article reviewed how scientists have a strong pursuit going for identification of the fundamental aspects of metastasis and how to prevent it.  (Ithaka:  If You Want to Spread Cancer Faster then Go to McDonald's)

I confess.  That title was stupid since the point of the article was high-fat food is a major contributor of a protein strongly indicted for being at the root of metastasis.  In other words, they may have an angle on preventing it.

Note:  I kicked myself after the fact for that title since the article has incredibly good news in it.

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