Stress & Cancer: Dramatic New Evidence That A Woman’s Mental State Can Affect The Death Rate in Cervical Cancer

It’s important to remember with this type of research that in order to make any definitive claims, researchers have to look at a lot of statistics over a very long period of time. However, the study’s author Dr. Donghao Lu, researcher at Karolina Institutet in Stockholm, said that there is a huge amount of emerging evidence to suggest that phycological distress may affect the progression of certain cancers — cervical cancer being one of them.

Let’s look at the statistics. For the study, researchers attempted to examine the influence of stress on cancer-specific morality with cervical cancer. They looked at 4,245 women with cervical cancer — all diagnosed between 2002 and the end of 2011. Researchers looked at records from the Swedish Patient Register to identify which study participants had been diagnosed with one or more of the following psychiatric disorders: stress-reaction and adjustment disorders, depression, and anxiety. When discussing his research, Dr. Lu also pointed out that patients who receive a cancer diagnosis are at an increased risk of several stress-related disorders.

Looking at the correlation between women who died of cervical cancer during the study, and women who suffered from one of the stress disorders or went through a stressful life event while they had cancer, researchers found that women who had either a stress-related disorder or a stressful life event were 33% more likely to die of the disease than those who did not report stress. Those who had stress-related disorders were 55% more likely to die, and those who had experienced a very stressful life event were 20% more likely to die of the disease.

Dr. Lu suggested that there were several possibilities for this association. One is that women suffering from psychological disorders may be less likely to seek treatment — which leads to being diagnosed at a later stage. Another reason Dr. Lu mentioned is that there is research indicating that chronic stress may reduce cellular immune response, which could affect the progression of cancers like cervical cancer.

Cervical cancers was once one of the most common causes of cancer deaths in American women — however, the death rate has decreased significantly since the use of the Pap test became common practice. This screening method can find changes in the cervix before cancer actually develops. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 4,250 women will die from the disease in 2019.

Managing Stress

The topic of stress and cancer is quite popular and a lot of researchers have looked into possible correlations. However, most studies have suggested that while there may be a link between stress and cancer — stress does not outright cause cancer.

In a previous conversation with SurvivorNet, Weill Cornell’s Dr. Allyson Ocean suggested that the link between stress and cancer may actually stem from stress-related behavior changes.

"It may be that stress leads people towards unhealthy behaviors that are more directly associated with cancer," Dr. Ocean said. Smoking, unhealthy eating, and drinking too much alcohol are just a few examples of stress-related behaviors that have known associations with cancer.

When it comes to stress affecting the way certain cancers progress, there is a growing body of research — including this new study — that, at the very least, suggest that stress-management is a crucially important part of the cancer journey. Many doctors have told SurvivorNet that the patients who try the hardest to maintain a positive attitude tend to do better when it comes to treatment.

"We know that there have been several studies that have looked at healing and recovery after cancer surgery or have looked at recurrence," Dr. Heather Yeo, a surgeon at Weill Cornell Medical Center, told SurvivorNet in a previous conversation. "And we know that when your immune system is down when there's an excess of stress hormones going on your body has a hard time recovering and cancer takes advantage of that."

SurvivorNet has several resources available for those looking for help with stress management. Many survivors have turned to practices like mindfulness, meditation, and even exercise to help manage cancer-related anxieties.

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