Actress Angelina Jolie's image as a "strong and glamorous woman,' inspired British women to get breast cancer genetic testing, the Telegraph reported.

Award-winning actress, philanthropist and mother of six, Jolie announced that she tested positive of BRCA1, according to a study had a great impact to British women's decision to get tested.

Jolie had to undergo double mastectomy last year after she found out that she is carrying BRCA1, which is a gene that would likely cause breast cancer and increases likelihood of ovarian cancer.

Jolie's mother died of ovarian cancer when she was 56.

The research entitled, "The Angelina Jolie Effect: how high celebrity profile can have major impact on provision of cancer related services," conducted by the Genesis Genetics Service in Manchester, England showed that the news story about the actress' effort to reduce her risk to breast cancer, led to a long-lived interest in a health-related service.

The focus group of the research was taken from the UK covering the period of 2012 to 1013 and results showed that referrals June and July 2013 from 2012 more than doubled as well as for enquiries about mastectomy, following Jolie's announcement.

Telegraph quoted Gareth Evans, professor of clinical genetics at Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention as saying, "although there was concern that the increase in attendance following Ms Jolie's announcement might have been from the 'worried well' coming back for an early repeat screen, our research found that the opposite was true. "Angelina Jolie stating she has a BRCA1 mutation and going on to have a risk-reducing mastectomy is likely to have had a bigger impact than other celebrity announcements, possibly due to her image as a glamorous and strong woman. This may have lessened patients' fears about a loss of sexual identity post-preventive surgery and encouraged those who had not previously engaged with health services to consider genetic testing."

Jolie, early this year in a New York Times op-ed, tells of her journey to preventing breast cancer.

"Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could," she wrote. "I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex," she stated.