• Question: if you have cancer and you get stressed about it cn stress worsen the cancer you have

    Asked by cupcake94 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 10 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Good question, as far as I know no stress won’t actually make cancer worse. Stress is physiological as well as psychological and it does change the level of different hormones in your body, this can affect cancer symptoms.
      For example weight loss is a common symptom in cancer and being stressed can often cause you to lose weight too.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      stress is not going to make the cancer itself worse, however a patient with a cancer diagnosis goes through a range of emotions. Stress can be a part of this process. stress can affect people in different ways, it could lead to weight loss if the patient doesn’t eat from stress, this may make them weak and sicker if receiving treatment. the problem is cancer affects all aspects of someones life, if they cant work they don’t earn money which means they may not be able to pay their mortgage or rent which is very stressful! it may affect their relationships etc etc so stress can have major effects on cancer patients, that’s why charities like Macmillan are excellent as they provide help and advice on how to deal with a cancer diagnosis.

    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      There probably isn’t enough evidence to say that stress makes cancer worse but it can definitely impact on the psychological side of the disease. Being stressed could change how a person does other activities such as sleeping, exercise and eating right which could impact on how good or bad someone feels.

    • Photo: Leah Fitzsimmons

      Leah Fitzsimmons answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Some scientists have done research to try to answer this question and the studies that have been done find that stress itself does not increase the risk of a cancer coming back or lead to shorter survival after diagnosis with cancer. However, it is a good idea for people suffering from illness to try and minimise stress because of the other effects stress can have, like the others have said.

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