Stress and Cancer

What does stress have to do with cancer?

Cancer is a problem of uncontrolled growth – the cells grow out of control and faster than they should. Cancer is an activation of growth genes – called oncogenes.

Most studies relating stress to cancer have been done in the laboratory with animals. In those studies, findings suggest that stress may bring on cancer and accelerate the progression of cancer.

The problem with the studies is that they inject the animals with cancer cells prior to or after they subject them to stressors. Do you see the problem? We aren’t injected with cancer cells, so we really can’t say that these lab animal studies are pertinent to human cancer.

In human studies, proving stress as a cause of cancer relationship is difficult. Most human studies are retrospective – taking place after someone has been diagnosed with cancer.

Prospective studies are more meaningful. These are the studies that follow people from a younger age into old age and look at different variables, including rates of disease. Here, the cancer/stress relationship falls apart.

What about the stress/relapse relationship? Not much evidence here either – the evidence is minimal.

And finally, what about the rate of progression and stress? Recent research suggests there may be a relationship between progression and stress.

John Cacioppo, PhD, from the University of Chicago and Steve Cole, PhD, from the University of California, Los Angeles are studying the way genes and environment interact to influence behavior and health – called social genomics, a division of molecular biology.

Here is what they are finding:

• Loneliness and social adversity (including stress) influence health by priming the immune system to use its inflammatory response more often, which increases risk for disease. They are able to peer into cells and see what’s going on at a molecular level in a way that has never been done before.
• Loneliness and adversity reprogram the immune system to be ready for trouble. This is also true for early life adversity, regardless of current conditions – these situations cause the immune system to be vigilant for stress and tone deaf to cortisol (hormone that controls inflammation), so the pro-inflammatory response proceeds unrestrained creating an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

Susan Lutgendorf, PhD, from the University of Iowa and Steve Cole, PhD, from UCLA found that social circumstances influence gene expression in cancer cells. More than 220 genes were turned on in the cancer cells of women with low levels of social support and high levels of depression. These same genes were not active in women who did not have social stress. Some of those genes are associated with higher rates of cancer metastases.

• Genes and environment are not separate things.
• The environment controls what your genome becomes.
• Social support and stress management help people live better with and possibly control their disease.
• It is imperative that people living with cancer and heart disease (and most likely other serious illness) have strong support systems and skills to manage stress.

Overall, the science isn’t there to suggest that stress directly effects whether or not we get cancer. Our bodies are much too elegant and complicated to make such a simple statement. However, once someone has cancer, it is in their best interest to do as much as they can to help support their emotional and physical health in order to live as well as they can for as long as they can.

Moira

What we can learn from Osmosis Jones

Did you ever see the movie Osmosis Jones? It was on television a few nights ago and I watched it.

Osmosis Jones (voiced by Chris Rock) is a cell that lives in Frank (played by Bill Murray). Frank doesn’t take particularly good care of himself and Osmosis and his fellow ‘cops’ have a tough time keeping Frank healthy. It is their job to identify pathogens and either attack them or create antibodies to neutralize them. Besides being an animated cop, Osmosis is an immune cell.

Osmosis taking out a pathogen.

There are two categories of immune cells, also called lymphocytes – T Cells, which originate in the thalamus, and B Cells, which originate and mature in the bone marrow.

Bill Murray’s character, Frank, has practically no stress in his life. His biggest concern seems to be getting to the Buffalo Wing Festival.

For those of us with more on our minds than wings and dipping sauces, stress is a concern. When you activate your immune system over and over again with short term stressors, you increase the likelihood of the immune system overreacting and wreaking havoc with your health – which can trigger autoimmune diseases or make any condition you already have worse.

Learning how to effectively manage stress is essential to long-term health.

Meditation, relaxation and regular aerobic exercise can all help you stay healthy.

At the end of the movie, Osmosis Jones saves the day (or Frank) and Frank decides to make healthier choices – including exercise and a more balance diet (think vegetables instead of chicken wings).

Like Frank, we can make a conscious decision to lead healthier life-styles. Even small changes can yield big results.

Moira

How Stress Can Affect Our Memory

Have you ever been at a party or social/work related event and forgotten the name of someone whom you know that you know? Have you ever walked into a room to get something and forgotten why you are there? Have you ever started to ask someone to pass you something only to forget what it is called? “Could you please pass me that……you know, thing over there, I can’t think of the name”.

You could be suffering from “neurotic stupidity”. Yes, there is a name for it, and it has its roots in cognitive psychology.

• Neurotic stupidity is a failure to use the real capacity of our brain due to its being overloaded by information.
• Neurotic stupidity manifests as a failure to process information needed to function well.
• Symptoms of neurotic stupidity include missing important details, having needed information readily drop out of memory, failing to pick up on important social cues, and loss of creative problem solving skills.
• Multitasking and muscular tension are major sources of neurotic stupidity.

Cognitive psychologists say we have a 2.5 bit channel capacity. Our brains can process 2.5 bits of information at a rate of 18 times per second. To get a sense of how limited this is, the average home computer can process 32 bits of information at a rate of 2-3 billion times per second. What this means is that the brain is easily overloaded, and when it overloads we drop information from our memory and miss important information necessary for problem solving and navigating though our world.

The good news is that we have an amazing ability to store information and to take information in. When our brains are allowed to operate at their best, they have remarkable capabilities. We know from years of research that memory has been shown to be almost limitless. But because of our limited channel capacity, the brain can only process small amounts of information per unit of time.

Most people would think that things we see and hear are the greatest sources of information coming into the brain. While it’s true that information from hearing and seeing can overload the brain, the largest source of information processed by the brain comes from our muscles. Muscular tension is the major source of information flow into the brain, and tension goes hand in hand with stress. It is stress and tension that clog our channel capacity, therefore, learning to relax allows us to think more clearly and concentrate more easily.

The cure for neurotic stupidity? Relaxation and self-quieting exercises.

How Stress and Our Emotions are Connected

Last week I talked about stress and the fight/flight state, how to identify the signs of the state and how to neutralize the negative reactions associated with it.

But, there’s more to think about – namely, humans have an emotional response to everything that happens to them.

Every second of every day, we respond both mentally and emotionally to everything that happens to us. Here is why: everything that happens is processed in the subcortical part of the brain (also known as the limbic system or stream of emotion). Everyone responds in this way; it’s the way humans are wired.

At the base of the subcortical part of your brain is the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus governs the Autonomic Nervous System (fight/flight response) and basic functions of the body. It also controls sympathetic firing – whether or not you go into that fight/flight state.

So an event happens – let’s say a driver runs a red light and narrowly avoids hitting you. Your reaction is processed in the emotional part of the brain. As you silently (or not) curse the other driver’s carelessness your brain is busy. Chances are you found the incident stressful. Your hypothalamus reacts, you go into the fight/flight state and your hands get cold (remember if your hands are cold - and you’re not outside in very cold weather or have a medical condition that causes it - then you are in the fight/flight state).

The above is an obvious example of how you respond emotionally to events. But we also respond emotionally when we are stuck in traffic or grocery lines that are too long – or when we wake up in the morning and realize that our “to do” list is longer than we have time for. Remember we have a mental and emotional response to everything that we encounter.

Reversing the fight/flight state isn’t difficult if you practice self-calming techniques (please see last week’s blog for some simple techniques).

Be aware that there are thousands of different relaxation/meditation techniques. Some will work better for you than others. However, deep breathing is the basis of any relaxation or meditation technique. A good basic book on the subject is called “The Relaxation Response” by Herbert Benson M.D. To read further, go to http://www.massgeneral.org/bhi/basics/rr.aspx.

Next week I’m going write about how stress affects your memory.