A clear conscience on cancer: Mind might not matter in preventing
disease
[04/25/2000; USA Today]
''I really beat myself up when I was diagnosed with breast cancer,''
Sylvia Mitchell says. ''What could I have done differently to
stop it from happening?'' Like many patients, the 70-year-old
Fairfield, Calif., woman wondered whether stress, or a tendency
to worry more about her family than herself, somehow caused her
cancer, which was diagnosed in 1990. Researchers have wondered
the same thing for decades, asking whether people's personalities
somehow play into the development of cancer. ''Often it's the
first question patients ask after 'Why me?' '' says psychologist
Michael Zevon of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo.
An Australian researcher, David Protheroe of Northern Hospital
in Epping, found research linking stress responses to breast
cancer from as far back as 1701. Recently, however, studies have
appeared suggesting that while certain psychological factors,
such as depression, may increase the odds of cancer's recurrence,
psychology seems to play only a tenuous role in its initial appearance.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000425/2194872s.htm
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