Do Single People Get More Cancer? Recent Study Suggests Yes. Doctors Explain

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]There is a new scientific article that suggests that married people get less cancer.

[00:00:09]>> Whoa.

[00:00:10]>> Welcome to Talking with Docs. I'm Dr. Paul Salaza.

[00:00:12]>> Dr. Brad, that is that is very interesting.

[00:00:15]>> Are you kidding me? Maybe I should get maybe I should have multiple wives.

[00:00:18]>> So, >> really reduce my risk.

[00:00:20]>> And essentially, so you're saying single people get more cancer.

[00:00:23]>> Yes, that's what this study is suggesting. So, there's going to be a whole wave of people proposing saying, "Dear, I really love you and I don't want to get cancer. Let's get married."

[00:00:34]>> Dear, I think you're okay, but there's a strong cancer history in my family.

[00:00:39]>> There's got to be something else here.

[00:00:40]>> Okay. Here. Where did this study come from? University of was it Miami.

[00:00:44]>> Miami Miller School of Medicine. Yes.

[00:00:45]So, in Miami, >> that's recent article.

[00:00:48]>> It's an observational study.

[00:00:50]>> Okay. So, so when we talk about observational So, we looked at a bunch of behaviors over time. We didn't we didn't do anything to alter them. We just looked at them and then looked what we found as opposed to a trial where you said, "Hey, exercise. Let's see if exercise changes."

[00:01:03]>> But it's and usually you do these through databases. But this is actually a pretty large cancer database that they look through.

[00:01:09]>> The American one. So the biggest one of the biggest they say maybe the best one in the whole world. It's a It's a It's a very good database. Maybe the best database.

[00:01:16]>> The best database.

[00:01:17]>> It's the best database.

[00:01:18]>> It's the best. I'm not I'm just saying it's maybe the best database.

[00:01:21]>> Okay. Okay. I don't like where you're going with that. four million people.

[00:01:25]Okay, four million people. And basically they looked at marital status and looked at if that correlates with your chance of getting cancer.

[00:01:34]>> Okay. So if if you're married, did you end up getting more cancer or less cancer than people who are not married?

[00:01:40]And they define married as ever been married. Yes. If you're married than divorced, do you >> It's called ever married.

[00:01:46]>> Ever married. Yeah. Forever married.

[00:01:48]>> It's like binary. You either are married, you either have been married or haven't been married.

[00:01:51]>> That's right. They didn't count if you lived together, any of that stuff. This is >> how many times you been married.

[00:01:55]>> New this is strictly ever married, never married.

[00:01:58]>> Okay. So, yeah, there's a lot of things they looked that we're going to talk about. So, let's just let's first give the let's give the findings first, like the results, >> and then let's let's chisel down on them. So, >> the findings are clear.

[00:02:09]>> It showed that for men.

[00:02:11]>> Yes.

[00:02:11]>> 70% higher chance of getting cancer if you were never married.

[00:02:15]>> Never married. So, single dude playing the field, you're going to get cancer.

[00:02:18]70% higher chance.

[00:02:20]>> Which is shocking number. very large number and for women >> maybe you didn't dodge the bullet >> it was worse it was 80% increased risk of getting cancer >> even >> this is all cancers >> yes right all cancers >> so that's I think it's an important that's an important thing so it didn't it didn't separate them really but it's all cancers just literally more cancer >> so Brad is there something magical about the matrimonial relationship that like induces your immune system to just fight cancer Is that what this paper is showing us?

[00:02:52]>> So, what I'd say is I don't think that's been proven and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it more likely influences behaviors and the way that you live your life. So, we've talked we don't do a whole video about the social determinance of health. Yes.

[00:03:04]>> So, I think really this paper is examining determinance of health and saying, well, guess what? When you're single, there's a higher chance that you either do this or don't do this >> and that increases your risk of getting cancer.

[00:03:15]>> Okay? And let's look at those specific behaviors. So, okay, the kinds of things that it turns out explains why this result was noticed is because there's certain behaviors that people who are never married do or don't do compared to people who have ever been married.

[00:03:32]>> Right.

[00:03:32]>> All right. Let's start with some lifestyle ones. Apparently, if you've never been married, your tobacco use, your alcohol use is increased.

[00:03:40]>> Right. And and I think that's been well documented. Actually, fair.

[00:03:43]>> Not that married people never drink or never smoke. Just leave a comment if you drink, smoke, married, not married, leave a comment about this entire article, what you think about it. So, I would agree. Good studies show that and we we know quite clearly.

[00:03:56]>> I think no one is going to argue that smoking leads to cancer.

[00:03:59]>> Yeah, fair.

[00:04:00]>> Um, some people still might argue that alcohol leads to cancer. Evidence is pretty clear. Not good for your health.

[00:04:05]Yeah.

[00:04:06]>> Yeah. You're like, "Yeah, yeah, let's let's move on." Yeah. So, those two things, higher chance of doing that if you're single.

[00:04:11]>> Um, >> so that increases your risk of getting specific kinds of cancer. So, esophageal cancer, um, oral cancer, bladder cancer, that >> the drinking one kind of depends on your marriage, I guess.

[00:04:21]>> Yeah, for sure. Right.

[00:04:22]>> People, it depends on what your relationship is like. Maybe >> or or maybe you have a good relationship and you guys don't really like to drink together to be honest, right? It doesn't have to be a bad marriage.

[00:04:31]>> Maybe you have a challenging relationship and that's why you drink more.

[00:04:34]>> Or maybe your your life is so awesome that you just celebrate. You're popping champagne all the time. You're like, "Another great day. Happy Monday."

[00:04:41]>> So, in any case, it's the alcohol in the back. Okay, that's one lifestyle factor.

[00:04:45]>> Okay, so number two for me >> and it's this is a big one. So it's HPV related cancers.

[00:04:51]>> Okay, so you're going to be talking then about your um sexual lifestyle of the never married compared to the married, >> right? So HPV is a a virus. There's a whole bunch of different strains of this virus and we know quite clearly that HPV leads to specific types of cancer. So the main ones are cervical cancer, um anal cancer as well as um certain types of of mouth and oral and soft throat cancer essentially.

[00:05:15]>> Yes.

[00:05:16]>> And so HPV in itself is not guaranteed to give you cancer. So don't panic because almost everyone has been exposed to HPV, >> but there's a bunch of different forms of HPV, >> different forms. So different strains of the virus as well as repetitive chronic infections from certain types of behaviors. So if you live a lifestyle and typically single people get exposed more times and to more different kinds of virus of HPV >> typically.

[00:05:37]>> So that's going to increase your risk of getting those infections which can increase your risk of getting those types of cancers.

[00:05:44]>> Okay. So there's another win in the married column.

[00:05:46]>> Another big group. Yes.

[00:05:48]>> Okay. Uh the next one I would say and this one is particularly or really only for women is the sort of reproductive history. Okay. Right. because we know that having children, multiple pregnancies, uh, and even breastfeeding, um, those kinds of lifestyles or that kind of history, medical history is protective against certain types of cancer.

[00:06:10]>> Right? Because what they've shown is every menstrual cycle is is an exposure of fluctuating level of hormones. So, your total number of cycles in your whole life predicts the amount of hormonal exposure that that you've >> unoseded estrogen, basically unosed estrogen. And so and we know that the more estrogen you've been exposed to, the higher the chances of certain cancer. So ovarian endometrial breast are probably the big three.

[00:06:32]>> Right.

[00:06:32]>> Right. So if you get pregnant at a younger age, >> if you've had more pregnancies or if you have a later first period, your total number of cycles is less >> or even some people say earlier onset menopause, >> right?

[00:06:43]>> So yes, >> so that unopposed estrogen that can lead to those three cancers increasing. So presumably in the ever married group in this study they had children whereas now not speak this isn't for everybody but in general on averages uh in the ever married group had more children than in the never married group although there are people in the never married group with kids for sure.

[00:07:08]>> Right.

[00:07:08]>> Um but just in general averages more that might have led to why they saw these cancers. And so those those are the big three groups. And if you actually if you remove those big three groups, >> yeah, >> the numbers become very close to me.

[00:07:20]>> Well, there's other things a married apparent taking part in more screening.

[00:07:23]Apparently, if you're ever married, you take part in more of the screening available to available to you because your partner's like, "Hey, you got to get your >> go get your colonoscopy, bro." Yeah.

[00:07:32]Right.

[00:07:32]>> Yeah. That mole looks weird.

[00:07:33]>> Yeah. That mole on your back looks weird. Haven't you ever seen it?

[00:07:37]>> No, it's on my back. How am I supposed to see it?

[00:07:39]>> That's right. I think the other thing that partners would encourage you to do is is regular health checks and not even just screening but just investigating those symptoms. Um taking care of yourself. So often you have someone else kind of saying, "Hey, we need to we need to exercise more. We need to stay healthy weight. We maybe need to drink less."

[00:07:53]>> Yeah. Your pants don't fit anymore.

[00:07:55]>> That's That's right.

[00:07:56]>> Yeah.

[00:07:57]>> Yeah. Um I think the other thing that some people would say is these are all like pillars of health.

[00:08:02]>> So when you have a partner, you might be less lonely. You might have a more sense of connection, which we know is very good for our health and you might have less stress, might have more stress.

[00:08:10]>> Yeah, there's some cool data on that on the elderly and their marital status is what we should do a video on that.

[00:08:15]>> Yes.

[00:08:16]>> Uh so the bottom line is um if you're not married, go get married. Is that the bottom line?

[00:08:20]>> I don't think so. What I think the bottom line, what I would say is a some of the data is kind of is confusing. So say if you're married for like a year, then you're in the ever married group.

[00:08:30]So that's not a fair assessment. If you are in a committed relationship outside of marriage and live together, you're actually in the single group, which doesn't make a lot of sense. So that's confounding. I would say for HPV related cancers with the advent of the vaccine.

[00:08:44]>> Yes.

[00:08:45]>> That risk is might go to zero. Yes.

[00:08:48]>> Right. Like in a perfect world, we actually could eliminate HPV related cancers. Well, I guess save for some alternate strains, but like we could drastically reduce more than 90% for both men and for women.

[00:08:59]>> I think if we >> So don't get married, just get a vaccination. Well, so okay, >> the other thing I think that you could do though is if you stop smoking, if you you reduce your amount of toxic substances that you take in >> and live a healthy lifestyle.

[00:09:13]>> We wanted to make this video because we're pretty sure this paper, this stud is going to make it into mainstream news.

[00:09:19]>> It's a catchy headline.

[00:09:20]>> I think at some point you're going to see the headline said marital status reduces marriage reduces cancer risk.

[00:09:27]>> And if if you're single, all your married friends are going to bring this to like the book club. They're like, "Hey, >> yeah, >> there you go.

[00:09:33]>> Why did I get this handed to me at church?"

[00:09:35]>> That's right.

[00:09:36]>> No. So, we're just telling you this so that you can really understand what's behind that headline. What's behind that headline is really uh the marital the ever married versus never married is a surrogate for lifestyle, >> right, >> choices. And that's what's really driving the differences observed in the never married and the ever married groups, right?

[00:09:55]>> Fair to say?

[00:09:56]>> Yes. But then I would say there are healthier people on the unmarried side than to marry depending on who you look at. Right? So you can still live a totally healthy protected lifestyle as a single person, as a married person. It's all about your choices.

[00:10:07]>> It's your choices.

[00:10:08]>> There you go. And this is this is what's cool about observational studies. They can tweak out a lot of interesting information, but you have to really be careful in the interpretation side. And that doesn't grab headlines saying, "Hey, guess what? It may make a difference." That's not exciting.

[00:10:21]>> Observational studies usually are precursors to like proper randomized control trials. So maybe one day we'll see a randomized control trial blinded to see if marriage is productive. Never.

[00:10:31]You can't do that study.

[00:10:32]>> So you're going to get married and you're going to move to Minnesota and you're not going to get married and we're putting you in Vegas >> and you're not going to know blinded.

[00:10:39]>> That's right.

[00:10:40]>> All right. There you go. Fun little topic. Hope you enjoyed it.

[00:10:43]>> If you like this video, please like it.

[00:10:44]Subscribe to our channel. Leave a comment what you think about marriage, your health, not being married, all of it.

[00:10:48]>> Yeah. Talk to your partner about this tonight. See how that goes. Remember, you are in charge of your own health.

[00:10:53]See you next time.