There are two recent studies providing evidence for the idea that adapting some of these attitudes will slow down the progression of cancer. Dr. David Spiegel of Stanford University, in the early 1980s, studied women with metastatic breast cancer to determine what effect group support had on their quality of life. The immediate result of the study was the finding that "support groups can clearly improve the quality of life (for women with metastatic breast cancer)." In a 10-year follow-up, they found that the women who had participated in the one-year group support lived twice as long as the women in the control group who did not receive group support.
In the late 1980s, Dr. Fawzy I. Fawzy at UCLA studied the effect of group support on melanoma patients. That study found, in a six-month follow-up, that the patients who participated in the support groups "showed significantly lower depression, fatigue, confusion . . . as well as higher vigor" than patients who did not. The study also found that, six years later, significantly fewer patients in the support groups had died.
