Stress and cancer

Cancer research: "Emotional stress affects our central nervous system, which controls the amount and the type of hormones we produce. Under stressful conditions the body increases the production of corticosteroids throughout the body. Corticosteroids suppress certain parts of the immune system and reduce the production of molecules that create inflammation."

Wendy Zukerman's study is a good start and it is something well worth investigating. Anything which will shed light and help us combat this hideous disease is well worth it and already she has made some interesting findings. When my mother had non Hodgkin's lymphoma, it was a question I asked her specialist....did he think stress contributed to her disease. he thought not and yet, every time she started to stress and become agitated she started coughing and growing lumps in her neck. It happened several times. It also seemed that when she was calm and confident she was looking and feeling much better. it was hard to know whether the disease created the stress or the stress has a bad impact on any sort of recovery. I have known people to beat non-Hodgkins and they have been very confident and although worried they were not getting distressed like my Mum did sometimes. I still think stress played its part.