Scientists say that maintaining a positive attitude could the best way to fight cancer as a new study has shown that people who experience anxiety or depression are far more likely to die from the dreaded disease.

Researchers from University College London and the University of Edinburgh reviewed the findings of 16 studies involving 163,000 people to establish how feeling worried and withdrawn impacts survival. They found that overall, people who are most distressed from their diagnosis are 32 percent more likely to die from cancer.

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People with Leukemia were found to be almost four times more likely to die if they are anxious or depressed.

Those with prostate, pancreatic or esophageal cancer were also found to more than twice as likely not to survive.

"The results show that, compared with people in the least distressed group, death rates in the most distressed group were consistently higher for cancer of the bowel, prostate, esophagus and for leukemia," said Dr. David Batty, the lead author of the study.

Dr. Batty added that their findings contribute to the evidence that poor mental health might have some predictive capacity for certain physical diseases.

In the study, participants were monitored for an average on nine and a half years and questioned about their mental state. More than 4,000 people died from cancer during the study.

The participants who died in the first five years of the study were excluded in case the undiagnosed cancer was driving their anxiety and depression.

The scientists also factored in for age, sex, education, socio-economic status, Body Mass Index, alcohol intake, and smoking. 

Previous studies have shown that mental distress is related to increased rates of heart-related ailments, but it is now that it is being realized that it could also affect cancer survival rates.