There’s no escaping it. STRESS is a part of our lives. How we handle that stress can have an impact on our health. Currently, there is no evidence that stress is a direct cause of cancer. But evidence is accumulating that there is some link between stress and developing certain kinds of cancer, as well as how the disease progresses!

A link between exposure to traumatic stress and stress and cancer has long been suspected, but researchers don’t yet fully understand the connection. A new study of cancer risk among Holocaust survivors offers some clues.

The research was conducted at the University of Haifa in Israel, then published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. It compared cancer rates among 315544 Jews who emigrated from Europe to Israel either before or after 1945 (The 258048 who arrived after 1945 were presumed to have had significant exposure to the Holocaust.). The study found a 17% increase in risk for all types of cancer among that post-1945 group, and the younger someone was during the Holocaust, the higher the risk. This was more pronounced between 1940and 1945 had an overall risk of cancer 3.5 times that of those not exposed to the Holocaust, while the risk for females in that age group was 2.3 times as great.

How could trauma affect cancer risk? “The best data suggest that it may be though inflammation,” says Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a professor of Medicine who has studied links between severe stress and health problems. “There is growing evidence that inflammation is a risk factor for cancer and also for mortality from cancer. And there is lots of evidence that stress enhances inflammation.” This is especially so in early childhood, as studies of survivors of sexual abuse show. Clearly, those who experienced the Holocaust went through almost indescribable levels of stress.

Another factor might be the starvation Holocaust survivors suffered. A large body of (mostly animal) research suggests that near-starvation-level diets might prolong life and cut cancer risk. But the new study seems to show that caloric restriction under traumatic conditions has the opposite effect.

From The Times Magazine