Bachelors are twice as likely to die of cancer compared with married men, a study has found.

Researchers who looked at cancer death rates over 40 years found that men and women who had never married were more likely to die from 13 of the most common types of cancer, including lung, breast and prostate. But the increased death rate was most stark in unmarried men over the age of 70—and it has been increasing every decade.

Norwegian scientists looked at the records of 440,000 men and women diagnosed with cancer from 1970 to 2007, and compared them with marital status.

Never being married when diagnosed—rather than being divorced or widowed—doubled the death rate in men from 18 to 35 percent and in women more modestly from 17 to 22 percent.

Mortality rates for unmarried men have gone up by 3.4 percent every decade compared with those who are married.

Previous studies have shown married people generally have better health and live longer than single people, as they tend not to smoke and drink as heavily, and have better mental health. The researchers at the University of Oslo say this is likely to be a factor in cancer death rates.

They also suggested that married people are probably diagnosed earlier as they tend to visit the doctor more and may comply better with treatment as they have a to support them.

據英國《每日郵報》10月14日報道，一項研究發現，單身者死于癌癥的幾率是已婚者的兩倍。

研究人員在觀察了近40年的癌癥死亡率后發現，未婚男女更易死于包括肺癌、乳腺癌和前列腺癌在內的13種常見癌癥。但是這種死亡幾率的遞增在年齡超過70歲的未婚人群中更為明顯。而且每過十年死亡率就會更大。

挪威科學家查看了44萬從1970年到2007年罹患癌癥的病人紀錄，并將其與他們的婚姻狀況作比較。

癌癥患者中，無婚史的男性較之離過婚或喪偶的同性患者，死亡率從18%升至35%。而女性患者的死亡比率也從17%增大至22%。

和那些已婚癌癥病患相比，未婚患者的死亡率每十年就上升3.4%。

以往的研究表明，已婚者一般都具有更好的健康狀況而且比單身者的壽命長。因為已婚者較少酗煙酗酒，心理健康狀況也更為良好。奧陸斯大學的研究人員說這很可能是一個降低已婚癌癥患者死亡率的因素。

他們還暗示由于已婚者看醫生的次數較多，所以很可能在患病初期就能被診斷出病情，而且他們因為有了配偶的支持，也能更好地配合治療。