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Researchers have long maintained that social support can make a difference in the outcome of breast cancer. Others have doubted whether studies of this effect were sufficiently rigorous. Now scientists studying mice have strong evidence that social isolation accelerates cancer development. These mice were genetically engineered to be susceptible to breast tumors. Those that were separated from their mothers developed tumors earlier than those that were not isolated. Stress hormones seem to have changed the activity of genes in the tumor cells.
Since the research was conducted in mice, it doesn't answer the fundamental question about social isolation in women. On the other hand, support from family and friends is usually very welcome during a stressful time such as treatment for breast cancer.
[Cancer Prevention Research, online Sept. 29, 2009 ]
http://tinyurl.com/y85q8gw
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This story implies that past research studying social support and breast cancer in humans has been hampered by the fact that such research uses humans as subjects. Yes, you can randomize mice and control their environment, but gains in scientific robustness due to randomization have certainly been won at the cost of content validity and generalizeability in this case.
I am a researcher who for the last year has had issues getting funding for my well-designed prospective study of social support and breast cancer in human women using validated measures and a longitudinal design that can establish temporality of any associations we observe. My issue? Well it seems everyone only wants to fund studies in mice instead of humans. Did you know that Komen for the Cure only funds studies of, literally, a cure, i.e., they will not even consider a proposal to look at quality of life in human breast cancer survivors?
With regard to this mouse study, I would like to remind readers that social support and social isolation are well-defined specific constructs in adult humans, and have nothing to do with being ripped from one's mother at birth (an intervention that also changes nutrition, growth, and other factors that could account for breast cancer susceptibility). I am disappointed that this study would be considered scientifically robust given such major conflation, validity, and generalizeability issues. It is entirely possible to do a study in humans that is not only scientifically robust, but also more relevant and applicable. We are in need, however, of a cultural shift away from thinking that a randomized study of mice is a unilaterally superior method of getting sound scientific information about humans.