Stress Does Not Affect Survival

In a study that should alleviate at least some of the fears women have about coping with a diagnosis of breast cancer, Canadian researchers have determined that severe stress, while it can certainly impact health, does not have an impact on eventually surviving the disease.

Writing in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, Dr. Elizabeth Maunsell and colleagues at the Universite Laval in Quebec reported on their study of nearly 700 women with breast cancer over a seven-year period. They compared the number and intensity of pre-diagnosis stressful events for women who died during the study period with those of women who survived. They found no link whatsoever between stress and eventual survival.

The researchers pointed out that many women believe that stress might promote breast cancer or worsen the course of the disease. However, they said their findings provide "the strongest evidence to date" that no association exists.

Maunsell's team conducted interviews to determine what stressful events (death of a loved one, serious illness of a family member, etc.) took place in the five years leading up to their diagnosis. They determined that there might be evidence that stress depressed the immune system in the women prior to their diagnosis of breast cancer, but not to a "magnitude or duration" that would be enough to elevate their risk of death from the disease.

They cautioned that their study did not specifically look at stress immediately after the cancer diagnosis. But they cited another study which found no link between post-diagnosis stress and eventual survival from the disease.

"Evidence from this study and others on the lack of effect of this type of stress on survival may be reassuring for women living with breast cancer," they concluded.

SOURCE:

Psychosomatic Medicine, March/April 2001; 63:306-315

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