Stress-Induced Behaviors and Cancer

Nov. 1, 2002 (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study reveals mothers who experienced the death of a child had a slightly increased risk of developing cancer. Bereaved mothers had an increased risk only for smoking-related cancers, suggesting that stress causes behaviors that can elevate cancer risk.

Extreme psychological stressors, such as the death of a child, are generally not considered risk factors for the development of cancer. The recent findings in this study shows stress may not be the risk factor, but stress-induced behaviors, like smoking cigarettes, may be related.

Researchers studied 21,062 parents who lost a child from 1980 to 1996 and 293,745 randomly selected parents who had not lost a child. The parents were followed up to 18 years for the incidence of all cancers and then for specific cancers, which included hormone related cancers, smoking-related cancers, alcohol-related cancers, virus/immune related cancers, and lymphatic/hematopoietic cancers.

Researchers found no significant increased risk for cancer between parents who experienced extreme psychological stress and those who had not. Only bereaved mothers were at a slightly increased overall risk for cancer than those mothers who did not experience the loss of a child. Fathers who lost a child experienced no statistically greater incidence of overall cancer or cancer of any specific type. Neither the age of death nor the unexpected loss of a child was associated with significantly increased risk of cancer.

Jiong Li, M.D., from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, says, "Our study is in line with most of the previous studies, suggesting that an increased overall risk of cancer attributed to stressful life events is small if it exists at all." The study concludes psychological stress leads to behaviors that are associated with higher cancer risk, such as smoking.

SOURCE: Cancer, 2002;95:2237-2242

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