A new finding have been made by a Monash University research team in Melbourne, Australia that chronic stress can lead to cancer spreading rapidly all over the body.
This new development can be found in a study published in the prestigious journal ‘Nature Communications’.
The team of scientists led by Cancer Biologist Dr. Erica Sloan and Dr. Caroline Le,used mice with breast cancer as their specimen. They discovered that increased stress levels drove metastasis, the spread of cancer cells to new areas of the body.They furthered that there had been a medical debate that discussed the role of stress in a patient that has been diagnosed with cancer.
The study believes that although stress can not cause cancer but it might have played a vital role in worsening the cancer. Chronic stress was a response to emotional pressure experienced over time which the person feels he or she no longer has control over.
Report in ‘The Age Victoria’, an online platform, Sloan stated that they have been able to find out how immense stress can transform the lymphatic system into a ‘super highway’ for breast cancer cells to spread at much faster speeds.
They also discovered that adrenaline – a neurotransmitter triggered by stress to increase alertness and rapid reaction to threat – has a downside for animals and people with cancer.
