Oasis Advanced Wellness Health Forum

[LaRae]

Does Stress Cause Cancer?
By Micheal Guthrie, R. Ph.

The place of stress and even personality type in the development of cancer has been discussed for centuries. In fact, according to Lawrence LeShan, Ph.D. a causal relationship between psychological factors and cancer was accepted universally until around 1900 (LeShan, 1994). This relationship seemed especially profound among those who had experienced a profound sense of loss or despair.

LeShan feels so strongly about this, that he boldly states that this 'loss of hope' phenomena is found in 70 to 80 percent of cancer patients, and only about 10 percent of a control group. He backs this up with some impressive research findings.

However, there are many that feel that much of the research done in this area is seriously flawed. In many cases the question boils down to the 'chicken verses egg' variety. In other words, did depression lead to the cancer, or is the patient depressed because they have cancer? This question is not easily answered and setting up studies that take into account all of the variables are very difficult to design. One large study (for mammary cancer) involving 8059 female patients was initiated in 1973 and mortality figures were collected in 1988. This study tracked both physical and psychological factors, with physical factors being far more predictive of mammary cancer, but both interacted synergistically. One very significant finding of this study was that psychological (stress) factors potentiated physical factors , which will be explained in more detail later.

One way scientists test theories is to try them out on animals, usually small rodents. A number of researchers have set up experiments in which virally induced and transplanted tumors were induced in animals. The rodents were then randomized, and one group was stressed while the other was not. These studies have been summarized (Justice, 1985) and the results seem to indicate that virally induced tumors are adversely affected by stress, while chemically induced tumors are favorably influenced by stress.

It would seem that understanding the effects of stress at a cellular level would shed some light on the role of stress in cancer. Fortunately, this type of research is being done to some level. For example, Schedlowski and his colleagues (Schedlowski, 1993) found that subjects who skydived for the first time (talk about stress!) had significant reductions in their natural killer (NK) cell function after the jump. Natural killer cells are very important in defending against cancers and viruses.

The January 7th, 1998 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that the Natural Killer cell function of women who had been through breast cancer diagnosis and surgery was found to plunge by over 15% and T-Cell function fell nearly 20% if they scored high on a test which measured psychological stress. This information appears to indicate a causal relationship between stress and cancer, or at least cancer survival, but many are still not convinced. Fortunately studies are still in progress to help clarify this issue.

There is not doubt that a high level of stress in our lives is deleterious to our health in general, cardiovascular health in particular, and quite probably increases our risk to develop some cancers. Of course a highly stressed life certainly affects our quality of life so stress busters should be a normal part of our health maintenance.


.Justice, A. (1985). Review of the effects on stress on cancer in laboratory animals: importance of time of stress application and type of tumor. Psyco Bull, 98:108-138.

LeShan, Lawrence (1994) Cancer as a Turning Point. New York: Penguin

Schedlowski, M. et al (1993) . Changes of natural killer cells during acute psychological stress. Journal of Clinical Immunology, Mar;13(2), 119-126.