People who are frequently depressed or anxious may run a higher risk of dying from certain types of cancer, researchers said, according to AFP.

Medical records of more than 160,000 adults in England and Wales showed that those describing themselves as psychologically distressed were more likely to succumb to cancer, especially of the colon, prostate and pancreas.

Leukaemia and cancer of the oesophagus, or food pipe, were also more elevated among this group, they wrote in the BMJ medical journal.

The researchers were cautious in their conclusions, pointing out that a statistical link does not necessarily signify a cause-and-effect relationship between mood and cancer.

But the findings add to growing evidence that mental and physical health do not function on separate planes, and that one can influence the other, they said.

Earlier research, for example, showed that chronic depression and anxiety may help trigger heart disease and stroke.

But attempts to discern similar links between states of mind and cancer have yielded mixed results.

To find out more, a quartet of researchers led by David Batty of University College London examined raw data from 16 long-term studies, covering 163,363 people aged 16 and over.

Participants were monitored for an average of nearly a decade. More than 4,300 died of cancer.