Stress on a daily basis protects against breast cancer

Sep 10 2005

According to recently published research, women with high levels of stress in their everyday lives, are at less risk than others of developing primary breast cancer.

This somewhat surprising conclusion, was arrived at by scientists from Denmark, after they studied 6,689 women over a period of 18 years.

The researchers suggest that that it may be because daily stress suppresses the production of oestrogen, which is a risk factor in breast cancer.

They say that the prolonged-low key stress of everyday life results in a persistent activation of stress hormones which may impair oestrogen synthesis and may therefore be related to lower risk of breast cancer.

They do however point out that this theory is untested and deserving of greater investigation.

Not only did the researchers from the National Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen find a lower incidence of primary breast cancer among stressed women, they found that the higher the day-to-day stress levels the lower the risk.

But the researchers warn that stress is not a health cure, given that high levels had also been associated with increased risk of potential killers like heart disease.

They are honest too in admitting that their findings are at complete odds with studies in Finland and Sweden, the former found no link between daily stress and breast cancer while the latter found a direct association with higher risk.

They believe that part of the reason for the apparent discrepancy might be that their study only looked at first-time incidence of breast cancer while the others looked at all cases.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.