According to experts, this is a common theme in cancer patients that occurs YEARS before diagnosis
Years of smoking, binge drinking and overeating. These are all factors that cause cancer.
It is thought that these habits eventually damage our DNA and weaken our body’s defenses, creating the ideal environment for tumor formation.
However, some research suggests that a single traumatic event may cause a person to develop the fatal disease years later.
A bitter divorce, a death in the family, or a serious injury can leave a lasting impression on you. It can make you less responsive to stress for the rest of your life and increase your risk of cancer.
Women who experienced a traumatic event, such as a car accident or an assault, and showed symptoms of PTSD had a twice as high risk of developing ovarian cancer than women who were not traumatized. a 2019 study of more than 54,000 women found.
Studies on the link between stress and cancer have produced mixed results. But some doctors believe that stress may indirectly increase cancer risk by weakening the immune system and making people more likely to take up behaviors like smoking.
A 2022 study of 278 patients, the majority of patients with head, neck or pancreatic cancer were found to have experienced another major stressful life event within five years of the diagnosis of their cancer.
Other research has shown less convincing links between cancer and stress. A 2016 survey of over 100,000 Women in the UK found no association between negative life events and breast cancer risk.
Studies like this have led Dr. Andrea Lynne Roberts to suspect that the link between cancer and stress is not scientifically strong.
It’s true that stressful events that lead to PTSD or lifelong emotional problems can affect your health and increase your chances of developing a host of medical conditions. The link between stress and heart disease, for example, is much stronger than the link to cancer, Dr. Roberts says.
“I think if you have a lot of stress, you don’t have to worry about cancer,” she said.
Despite these caveats, scientists have been investigating the link between cancer and stress for decades.
It can have ‘a profound impact on the way your body’s systems function’, Dr. Lorenzo Cohensaid the director of the Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson. According to Dr. Cohen, the best guess is that stress makes the body more susceptible to cancer. By that, he means that stress weakens the body’s natural defenses against cancer and other diseases.
Short-term stress, such as when grocery shopping, speaking in public, or preparing for a sporting event, is unlikely to increase the risk of cancer.
Your body can handle short moments of stress.
However, a single traumatic event can cause you to develop depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which can lead to lifelong stress problems, according to the NIH.
This is called chronic stress. You can suffer from it long-term while working in a toxic work environment, dealing with childhood trauma, or being unemployed.
According to Dr. Cohen, chronic stress causes the cellular changes in your body that can eventually lead to cancer.
This is because when you are under this kind of stress, your body is constantly producing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which triggers the body’s ‘natural alarm system’. according to Mayo Clinic.
These chemicals cause your heart to beat faster, your blood pressure to rise, and the amount of sugar in your blood to increase, giving you more energy.
They also dampen systems in your body that aren’t needed in a fight or flight situation. They reserve energy that would be used to support your immune system, for example, and send blood to your muscles so you can move faster.
With short-term stress, these effects disappear quickly.
But if you can’t calm yourself down for a longer period of time, it can put a strain on your body, weakening your immune system, making you depressed and causing digestive problems. Dr. Anil Sood said a professor of gynecologic oncology and reproductive medicine at MD Anderson Hospital.
This may make it easier for cancer to grow, as it increases the risk of diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, which can lead to cancer. In addition, the immune system is less able to fight cancer when it is under pressure.
“Chronic stress can also cause cancer to grow and spread in several ways,” Dr. Sood said.
It could be that when someone is stressed, he or she is more likely to behave in ways that increase the risk of cancer, such as starting to smoke, drink or stop exercising, the National Cancer Institute (NCI number).
This should not lead to people who are faced with a cancer diagnosis feeling guilty, Dr. Daniel Bruetmansaid a medical oncologist at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Chicago.
“They may think that if they had had ‘less stress,’ they wouldn’t have gotten cancer, or that the treatments would have worked,” Dr. Bruetman said.
The reality is that the connection is unclear and you shouldn’t feel guilty about your stress. There are many other factors that may play a bigger role in cancer risk, such as genetics, diet and exercise habits.
Also, don’t think that you are doomed to get cancer just because you had a bad day. Nicole Andrews, a registered dietitian specializing in oncology, said on TikTok.
“We all have stress in our lives. Please don’t think that if you have a stressful day, you’re now going to get cancer,” Ms Andrews said.
However, you can do your best to learn how to manage chronic stress, Dr. Cohen says.
For some people, this may be as simple as cutting a toxic person out of their life. But for others, managing stress may mean seeking therapy, meditating or improving their sleep habits, Dr. Cohen says.
He focuses primarily on sleep, saying that “eight hours of sleep a night is a great defense against stress.”
