November 29, 2005
Does Stress Cause Cancer?
From 
The New York Times:
Christina Koenig found out she had breast cancer on a Friday afternoon. She was just 39 years old. On Monday, she thought she knew why the cancer had struck. "I went in and talked to a team of medical professionals who ultimately performed a lumpectomy, and I said, 'How long has this been there?' They said, 'Five to ten years.' And immediately, my mind jumped to: 'Well, I did go through a divorce. I did have stress.' " Ms. Koenig, who lives in Chicago, was divorced four years before her cancer was diagnosed. Was it just a coincidence, she wondered? Now, four years later, she still wonders. So do many other women who get breast cancer. Ms. Koenig now works for Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, which gets 40,000 calls a year on its hot line. Over and over, she says, women ask, Did stress cause their cancer by weakening their immune system and allowing a tumor to grow? "It's a widespread belief," Ms. Koenig said.
And it is not restricted to women with breast cancer.
More here.
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Comments
The reason we do not have the answers to such important questions is because the orthodoxy spends the multi billions of research dollars virtually only on dead end genetic research, and none on phenomenological studies of patients with cancer. Every cancer patient is a research laboratory, holding the clues of all kinds of information which possibly led to the disease. Some research associate, even if just a high school graduate, should and must be assigned to every cancer patient and question them on numerous issues, from diet to psychological turmoil in their lives, from toxicology to the medicines they take. Almost nothing is off limits. All the information obtained, through hundreds of carefully selected questions, and possibly lab tests too, should be statistically analyzed and compiled. WE also need to be doing this with those who do not contract any clinical cancer by say, 90 or 95 or 100 years of age, and seek to understand why they did not contract the disease. Such fortunate individuals should even be studied after death at autopsy. Such studies, over a long term, could provide just as important information as laboratory studies of causes of cancer. This issue is just another why the "cancer generals", who have not had a new idea in over 50 years on cancer, must be fired, and replaced with others with a new vision and a new direction, to replace the money waste of multi billions of dollars on dead end genetic research, which has led, for the most part, with a few exceptions, down a dead end road to ignorance and continued patient and family suffering.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | Nov 29, 2005 10:01:34 PM
I submit that the word "stress" may have statistical importance but is of little value in a case by case study. I know from my own observations, and I'm sure that most people can think of similar experiences, that the same environmental events that are of little consequence to one person can be a source of painful stress to the next. My first realization of this came when I observed a dishwasher in a cafeteria who was very content in the dishroom but became a nervous wreck jsut because she had to serve on the serving line for one hour during the busy part of lunch. The job was easy, with people to her left and right doing exactly the same thing, but invariably she looked like she was counting the minutes until she could return to the dishroom, shaking her head, muttering to herself about "These people...they drive me crazy...these people, these people..."
That was a dramatic case, but I have observed similar stress reactions to situations that most people would find unremarkable.
Likewise, when a parent raises his or her voice to two children, one might burst into tears while the other looks back blankly, and a third may yell back at the parent. Same stimulus, three responses. Go figure.
Posted by: Hoots | Nov 29, 2005 10:51:39 PM
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