New Research Links Stress to Cancer

I've always suspected that stress can be one of the causing factors in cancer. I've never been quite able to articulate this hunch of mine, but personal experience has made me question the body's immune system and its ability to stay healthy and resistant to disease, when it's being hammered day in and day out by the constant stress of living.

Recent studies on how stress is linked to cancer and cancer treatment sure seem to bear this out. According to an article posted in Mercola.com (www.mercola.com), the stress hormone epinephrine changes prostate and breast cancer cells in ways that may make them resistant to cell death. This means that emotional stress could both contribute to the development of cancer and reduce the effectiveness of cancer treatments.

Let me bracket these findings with some personal testimony: my mother raised four boys and one girl, and fell victim to the big "C" just when her youngest child hit his late teens. If you ever raised a child you know how challenging it can be. Multiply that by 5 kids -- four of them boys and it's no wonder my dear 'ol mom even had time to catch her breath.

In those days -- and it hasn't really been that long, I'm talking about 25 years ago -- no one knew a whole lot about how to treat cancer let alone what caused it. Getting back to how this relates to stress, the Mercola.com article points out that epinephrine levels increase sharply in response to stressful situations, and can remain continuously elevated during long periods of stress or depression. And like I said, as fulfilling as rearing a child may be, raising 4 rambunctious boys and a girl doesn't leave a lot of time for R & R.

According to a 12 March article in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (www.jbc.org), the stress hormone epinephrine is known to elicit multiple systemic effects that include changes in cardiovascular parameters and immune responses. Studying prostate and breast cancer cells in the laboratory, scientists discovered that a protein called BAD -- which causes cell death -- becomes inactive when cancer cells are exposed to epinephrine.