Cancer and Anxiety

Using an animal model, mice, researchers at Stanford concluded that high levels of anxiety increased the vulnerability and severity of cancer in mice. Nervous mice had higher levels of immune-suppressing cells, T-regulatory cells. Normally these cells thwart an overzealous immune response and prevent the body from attacking itself. In this case, too many T-reg cells were thwarting the immune response needed to rid the body of abnormal cells. The anxious mice also had higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, and were much quicker to secrete this hormone than the laid-back mice. This area of research is very important, as just the diagnosis of cancer is enough to create anxiety and stress--not the best response for combatting cancer. This research team now wants to look at the effects of ameliorating the stress response on cancer. This research was published in PLoS ONE April 25.