Can Stress Cause Cancer?

Patients as well as scientists are interested whether there is any correlation between stress and cancer. Much research has been done to answer this question. So far scientists are skeptical towards the widespread view that cancer disease may be the result of a highly traumatic experience. It was Friday afternoon when Christina Koenig got to know that she had cancer. She was 39 then. On Monday she reckoned that she knew why she had fallen ill. ?I talked to doctors and asked them How long have I had it?. They said: five to ten years. I had a flash of insight. Around that time I was divorcing my husband. It was extremely stressful?. Christina had divorced four years before cancer was diagnosed in her. Is it a coincidence?

Four years later Ms Koenig is still thinking about it, as well as many other women suffering from the same disease. Currently, she has been working for Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization which helps those who suffer from breast cancer. Every year 40 thousand women call the organization and ask whether it was stress that caused cancer by weakening their immune system. ?It is already a common belief?, says Koenig. And it does not only concern women having breast cancer. (?)

Patients as well as scientists are interested whether there is any correlation between nervous tension and cancer. Much research has been conducted to find out whether people suffering from tumors had been under any particular stress in the years preceeding the diagnosis, and whether it favours cancer disease. It has also been examined whether stress can attenuate immune system activity preventing the formation of cancer cells. Above all, attempts were made to determine whether the immune system protects from tumors at all.

The research on correlation between stress, immune system and cancer led to a surprising discovery, which changes the direction of the previous searches. It appears that cancer cells generate proteins which signal to the immune system to leave them alone and, what is more, to help them develop. However, whether stress can cause the disease remains unknown..(?) ?There are many extreme stress situations, says doctor Barrie Cassileth from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, for example imprisonment in a concentration camp or loss of a child. We examined people who had been exposed to such tension and we did not notice a higher cancer prevalence ratio in this group?. In Denmark 11380 parents of children suffering from cancer who are living in due huge stress were examined. However, a higher percentage of people suffering from tumors than in the whole population was not found in this group either.

Similar research was conducted on a group of 21062 parents who lost their child and 19856 parents of children suffering from schizophrenia. Neither is it clear whether decreasing the level of stress may give hope to those already ill. ?People need explanations - says dr. Cassileth. - For many the diagnosis is a huge shock. They cannot understand why this has happened to them and they look for any answer?. Dr. Barrie Cassileth adds that everybody can remind themselves of stress experienced in the past. ?I tell my patients that it definitely was not themselves that caused the disease?, dr. Cassileth underlines.

Dr Drew Pardolla, the director of a program on cancer research at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center found the answer to the question how a tumor is created the most important. Immune system?s white blood cells should attack and destroy cancer cells. Why it is not soothe case? Is the immune system too weak or perhaps there is another reason?

It was claimed in the past that cancer cells were forming non-stop but the immune system destroyed them. And everything which weakens it, for instance stress, may impede fighting the intruder. ?Nowadays no one holds that opinion anymore?, says dr. Pardoll. Experiments on mice devoid of immune system did not confirm saliently higher cancer morbidity. Also among people with immune disorders under the influence of drugs preventing transplant rejection or as a result of AIDS a higher cancer prevalence ratio was not found. (?)

What is happening with the immune system of those suffering from cancer then? Each tissue includes white blood cells and cancer cells are not an exception to that rule. However, the proteins occurring on the surface of cancer cells differ substantiallyfrom normal cells? proteins. The immune system is able to recognize that it has to do with an intruder but for some reasons does not do so. As has been established by dr Pardoll and other scientists, proteins on the cancer cells surface halt the attack of the immune system. At the same time the tumor emits molecules which make the immune system help cancer spread in the organism. ?We know very little about this immune reaction?, says Pardoll.

However, a new conception of tumor treatment results from this discovery, namely proteins of cancer cells which block the immune system need to be neutralized, or there is a need to stimulate the system to be more aggressive. The possibility of applying the first method is just being investigated, the other has been tested for some time. In case of mice even the types of tumors the most difficult to fight were eradicated by means of antibody injections or vaccination. Research to apply this method in humans continues.

Copyright 2006 Radoslaw Pilarski

Radoslaw Pilarski is a PhD candidate working on anticancer properties of Uncaria tomentosa - http://www.uncariatomentosa.com - at PAS, Poland. mLingua Worldwide Translations, Ltd. - http://mlingua.pl - provides professional language translations.