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Cancer
Cancer
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Tuesday, 19 February 2008

Cancer

    A hazard in discussing stress and cancer is that readers with cancer will conclude
that they induced their own illness in a direct cause-effect fashion.Cancer is not the simple.
No one knows for sure why cancer appears when and where it does.A number of factor can contribute:
diet,carcinogens in the environment,viruses,the immune systems,and others.While stress and personality
probably do not cause cancer in a straightforward way,they may well play a part.Therefore,it is
important to understand how they sometimes interrelate.



    Everyone's body conducts its own continuous surveillance for outside invaders and internal
imperfections,including cell mutations.Cell mutations,unpredictable changes in hereditary material,
usually are recognized immediately and the deviant cell is quickly destroyed before it can multiply
and turn into a wayward,uncontrolled tumor.But in rare instances,the mutant cells escape destruction,
gradually multiply,and become a runaway tumor,sometimes consuming normal tissue and organs as they
grow.If not stopped,the tumor can cause death as it impedes normal functioning of key body parts.
In other instances,cancer can metastasize ,a part breaking away to take up residence and multiply
at another location in the body.This process of growth and metastasis can occur within a few weeks
or over many years.Tragically,many cancers are not diagnosed and treated with radiation,chemotherapy
,or surgery until too late.

The Role of Stress in Cancer
Stress sometimes contributes to cancer by weakening the body's immune system.McQuade and Aikman(1974,76)
have stated:

    Stress help to cause cancer because it depresses the immune system,the body's only  real
means of defending itself against malignant cells.It does this through the action of the adrenal cortex
hormones,which partly affect t-lymphocytes.Searching out foreign  antigens in the body is one of the tasks
of the t-lymphocytes,and significantly they measure at low levels in the tissues of most cancer patients.

    A study of experimental mice by Vernon Riley(1975) of the Fred Hutchinson Research Center
in Seattle also is suggestive.Laboratory mice born to mothers with a known mammary tumor virus were
exposed to a variety of environmental stressors,including isolation and severe crowding.Mice demonstrated
that mammary tumor occurrences in these already vulnerable offspring increased up to 90 percent under
stress,but remained at seven percent in a protected stress free environment.A generalization from
experimental mice to humans cannot  be made without extreme caution,yet this study is consistent
with the position that stress may play a part in cancer.In Getting Well Again,Simonton,Simontan and
Creighton(1978) cite other important studies.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 February 2008 )

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