if quality of life was a predictor of longevity, they found that women with a higher quality of life at the outset of their illness lived longer than those who were less happy at that time.
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 there were encouraging immune system consequences of being in the group.
A 1988 study conducted by Lee Berk at Loma Linda Hospital investigated the effect laughter had on the immune system and found that "laughter may be an antagonist to the classical stress response." What that means is that laughter may actually strengthen the immune system, a fact commented upon extensively by Norman Cousins.
