Stress and cancer

Are stress and cancer related

In this post, I want to take the time to delve into this topic. The main purpose will be to present you with the information according to the research we have access to. Believe it or not, there is a fair amount that’s been done on this front.

But before I jump into all of the details, I want to take a moment to establish that cancer is a complex condition. One that has many factors, including genetics, diet and environment. It’s all too easy to get fixated on one aspect of the condition.

However the emotional and psychological component to cancer, is one aspect that is easily overlooked. Addressing the psychosocial, emotional aspects contributing to your health and wellness are very important both during and post cancer treatment.

So let’s jump in and see what we know to date.

Does stress cause cancer?

Before we jump into answering this question let’s take a closer look at some of the processes in your body, and how stress impacts those.

You know you have a circadian rhythm and it’s entirely dependant on light and dark cycles. Now these clocks in your cells actually have a huge influence on the behaviour of your cells, and at different times of the day your cells actually behave differently.

Why is this important?

Your circadian rhythm is also connected to your stress response system the HPA axis Hypothalamic Pituitary Axis. So you release stress hormones like cortisol in a rhythmic way. This is actually one of the things we test to get some idea of how much your stress response is playing into your current health status.

There is a significant link between circadian rhythm and chronic stress activation each feeding into each other. We know because research has shown that people who work night shift have an increased risk of developing certain cancers especially breast cancer and the longer you disrupt the rhythm the higher your risk.

If you have work that keeps you up till late.

A wandering mind that keeps you up.

Sleep apnea which is putting you and any potential partners who can’t sleep at risk.

Working across multiple time zones. Lot’s of international travel.

Having babies who wake often.

and well you get the picture. All of these factors will impact your circadian rhythm but so too will your cortisol levels.

There have been studies that have shown that survivability of cancer patients is affected when the circadian rhythm is affected. Cortisol is highest in the morning and reaches its low point in the evening. What researchers have found is that women who have metastatic breast cancer have a different cortisol curve its seen as flat on test results and these women have been observed to have earlier death from their cancer.

This morphed cortisol rhythm is also associated with a compromised immune system and lower natural killer cells.

When dealing with cancer either current or past… There should be an emphasis on checking cortisol through functional pathology and addressing sleep and stress patterns.

Stress in cancer patients

There is some research that shows if you have a sense of hopelessness and depression at diagnosis it will have impact on your short term and long term survival.

We need to ask what comes first the chicken or the egg, are we depressed, down, and then more susceptible to cancer or are we diagnosed and then experiencing this sense of stress and depression??

Some research has also shown that short term exposure to a traumatic life event has an impact on individuals diagnosed with cancer but not as much as a chronic low grade and consistent exposure to stress. Being in a job, marriage or living situation you don’t like for years may have an impact on your mood and being putting you at a higher risk.

As a naturopath in Sydney, I can tell you when I have clients that have precancerous states and they express an exposure of chronic and low grade stress. One of my treatment priorities is to deal with the stress management and try and implement good strategies to help mitigate some of that risk.

Pessimistic Much?

Are you someone who’s always thinking about what could, did or was wrong? As opposed to all the things that are right in the world?

Researchers have found that people who were pessimistic had a lower survival time from cancer diagnosis to their optimistic counterparts.

What’s been found is that pessimists have higher inflammatory markers, and cancer being an inflammatory condition of course this is going to be of concern. In fact this was looked at in cardiovascular diseases primarily. So a pessimistic attitude may lead you into all sorts of health dilemmas.

We know that when people are stressed and overwhelmed they’re more likely to make poor health choices as well which really feeds into risk, eating more sugary foods, smoking and drinking more. Check out the post on these factors here.

Stress hormones & Cancer

There are several other hormones worth noting in this picture…Norepinephrine, we know that this stress hormone impacts cells and tissues, decreasing immune responsiveness and in cancer cell behaviour particularly they trigger genes to transcribe faster potentially perpetuating their growth as well as increasing blood flow to the tumor.

People under chronic stress have more Norepinephrine and Epinephrine in their tissues. One study finding that women who had higher epinephrine had an increase in the number of ovarian follicles.

If we look back in time it would be fair to say that the exposure to stress hormones was supposed to be fleeting but now we see them elevated every day. This chronic exposure seems to be the largest contributing factor.

Couple this with a lack of proper sleep cycles and we’re going to have the perfect storm for pre-cancerous cells to evolve into something more serious.

Social support, cancer & depression

Clinical studies have shown that ovarian cancer patients who have more social support have lower levels of stress hormones.

Several studies have shown that depression decreased survival rates, we know that people who are depressed have an up regulation of transcription of inflammatory genes. English please??

Essentially being depressed changes how your genes function this is called epigenetics and so if you’re depressed you’re more likely to experience more inflammation due to the change in gene expression.

Cancer is an inflammatory condition- you can read a little more about this in the diet for cancer article here.

Trauma and cancer

We’re seeing more and more research conducted in this area. It’s a particular area of interest for me as a practitioner.

When looking at tissues post mortem in those with a history of child abuse were more likely to have an unregulated stress response system.

They had more receptors for stress on cell surfaces. So when cells become mutated, they have the receptors on the cells to facilitate cancer cell growth and therefore a higher risk of developing cancer.

There are two studies in particular that have been published that showed people with a history of child abuse had an increase in many cancers.

Another mechanism mentioned for this risk factor, is the shortening of telomeres. These are little caps on the end of your chromosomes and in those who have experienced childhood trauma these caps are shorter.

The shorter you're telomeres the more increased the risk of developing mutations and therefore cancer.

Processing and dealing with any trauma that contributes to your daily stress or anxiety is important. Sadly, many who’ve experienced trauma often medicate and self pacify with things like, alcohol, cigarettes or unhealthy food all of these increase the risk of developing cancer.

Stress and anxiety also has extensive impacts on the immune system function, but that’s for another post. Just know that there is a major immune factor in stress suppressing immune system function and cancer development as well.

how to address stress?

So much of the work I do here on the blog is an attempt to deal with this issue, in fact much of the work I do across all of the modalities I’ve learnt all come back to dealing with stress.

From all of my many years working with thousands I’ve found, stress, anxiety and trauma to be the starting point for many conditions and struggles.

You may wish to consider starting yoga!

In his book —“The body keeps the score.” Bessel, a world renown researcher in the field of trauma, stress and disease, presents yoga as one of the best tools for processing and overcoming trauma. I can’t recommend his book enough especially if you’ve experienced any form of trauma.

De-Stress Yourself

#1 REMEDIATE
Adjust your life purpose, core values. If you’re in a job you hate, a loveless marriage, repressed sexuality, or just generally not aligned with who you truly are. This is going to create stress in the system. Primarily that low grade chronic stuff I’ve talked ab out.

#2 REPLENISH
Creative living, when you’re fully absorbed and engaged in doing something creative your brainwaves shift into a more relaxed state.

#3 RELAXTION
Most people don’t know how to relax or turn off vigilance. Hypnotherapy is great for this but so us mindfulness and other forms of creative therapy.

#4 REST
Optimize sleep quality, check out the article on this topic.

#5 RESET YOUR RHYTHMS
Have a cortisol test and reset your circadian rhythm

I’ve spoken to a few survivors of cancer interestingly many of them share a fairly common sentiment.

It seems the cancer forces them to stop and look deeply at themselves and their lives, there is a transformation beyond the physical for many of them. While it’s easy to look at all of the things that have gone ‘wrong’ we can also look at the possibilities and what is ‘right’ this too.

As always, I hope you found this article helpful in some way. If you know of anyone who’s had cancer please share this with them as they may find the information helpful on their journey to wellness.

If you have any questions about the clinic or your health please don’t hesitate to reach out