Humans are social beings and from the moment we take our first breath we rely on others to be held, fed, guided, encouraged, and picked up when we fall. One cannot exist alone. Help from others is even more important when we are sick with cancer. A community is a group of people bound by commonalities. These ties that bind may be familial, circumstantial, social, geographic, philosophical, professional or spiritual, and the social support of these connections generates powerful healing benefits. 

Research has shown that people with more social connections live longer and are less likely to get cancer. One study found that persons lacking social ties and community were more likely to die than their connected peers, regardless of socioeconomic status, smoking status, alcohol consumption, obesity or physical activity. Another study of breast cancer patients found that women with fewer sources of support had twice the breast cancer death rate than those with a higher number of sources. A study on young women with breast cancer found that increasing social support after diagnosis reduced risk of dying by 70% in comparison to patients whose social support stayed the same or decreased during cancer treatment.  

How do our social connections and receiving love physiologically create these powerful benefits in our body? Supportive interactions, feeling loved, and healing touch cause the release of hormones oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins. Oxytocin is the love or cuddle hormone, and it is released when we hug a loved one, hold a baby or caress a pet. It is also released with exercise training. It promotes health by decreasing stress hormone cortisol, lowering blood pressure, boosting the immune system, and is anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. Oxytocin is released during lactation and there is correlation between longer duration of breast feeding (often involving multiple children) and decreased risk of breast and uterine cancer. The exception to the protective effect of breast feeding and cancer is Inflammatory Breast Cancer. It has been shown in breast cancer patients that women who breast feed for a longer duration (greater than 12 months) were more likely to get Inflammatory Breast Cancer than non-inflammatory Breast Cancer. However, Inflammatory Breast Cancer patients who breast fed for at least 5 months are more likely to have disease free survival at 50 months post treatment than those that didn't. This may be due to tumor microenvironment and breast stem cells. 

Oxytocin may play a powerful role in cancer. In breast cancer cell cultures studies, oxytocin inhibits breast cancer cell growth. Oxytocin has also been found to inhibit ovarian cancer cell growth in vitro and higher levels of oxytocin in advanced ovarian cancer are associated with longer survival. In a mouse model of breast cancer, exercise training increased oxytocin levels and decreased breast cancer tumor volume by decreased the P13K/Akt and mTOR cell proliferation pathway. So cancer does really hate kisses and exercise. Oxytocin may be the puppy love cuddle hormone molecule that is the body's own cancer-killing smart bomb.

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We all experience suffering and hardship. We are social beings and we need one another to pick us up when we fall down. When we commune we share ideas, emotions, physical comfort, and tangible objects of affection. In coming together, we realize that we are not alone. No matter how big the burden, we can carry it if share the load.