Chronic stress spreads cancer

[eatsome]

As someone who has had incurable brain cancer for 7+ years this stresses me out. From a logical perspective, our bodies aren't designed to withstand the kind of emotional turmoil that follows a cancer diagnosis. In nature, we would either pass away quickly to 'unknown' illness or never know that there was anything 'wrong' with us until we met a swift end. Neither options allow the human brain to comprehend what is going on. Modern advancements in technology open up a really challenging area of pyscological science, where we know something is wrong, but I dont believe the brain is fully capable of processing that information. A by-product of that is stress.

[pcarolan]

Much love your way. I lost a partner that went through it. Modern antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication did seem to help. You are brave to talk about it and I hope more people do.

[jollyoldpirate]

I don’t see this way of thinking very often and I do think it’s more useful to meditate on it. Thank you for taking the time for this, the silent majority appreciates it even if we can’t find the words.

[erie]

“but as far as the depression and hopelessness associated with cancer, there’s a lot of evidence stemming from Roland Griffiths’ original work from John Hopkins University suggesting strongly that a single dose of psilocybin is extremely effective at helping reduce the depression and anxiety surrounding end of life in cancer patients.”

[bookofjoe]

>Chronic stress increases metastasis via neutrophil-mediated changes to the microenvironment

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15356...

Summary

Chronic stress is associated with increased risk of metastasis and poor survival in cancer patients, yet the reasons are unclear. We show that chronic stress increases lung metastasis from disseminated cancer cells 2- to 4-fold in mice. Chronic stress significantly alters the lung microenvironment, with fibronectin accumulation, reduced T cell infiltration, and increased neutrophil infiltration. Depleting neutrophils abolishes stress-induced metastasis. Chronic stress shifts normal circadian rhythm of neutrophils and causes increased neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation via glucocorticoid release. In mice with neutrophil-specific glucocorticoid receptor deletion, chronic stress fails to increase NETs and metastasis. Furthermore, digesting NETs with DNase I prevents chronic stress-induced metastasis. Together, our data show that glucocorticoids released during chronic stress cause NET formation and establish a metastasis-promoting microenvironment. Therefore, NETs could be targets for preventing metastatic recurrence in cancer patients, many of whom will experience chronic stress due to their disease.

[pazimzadeh]

> Mice were exposed to physical restraint stress as previously described (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1935-3). Briefly, female mice were restrained in individual, homemade 50 mL Falcon tubes with air holes for 2 hours per day. Mice could move backward and forward slightly in the restraining tube.

I wonder why they only used female mice. In the original methods study about the effect of stress on hair loss both male and female mice are used.

[spangry]

That's disturbing. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy will often be given Lipegfilgrastim to bolster their immune system. It does this by stimulating the production of neutrophils.

[thenerdhead]

So like Robert Sapolsky was right this whole time?

https://youtu.be/eYG0ZuTv5rs?si=6rxFQEa0c8zBroqD

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/327

[Litost]

The full length video of his is definitely worth a watch, but if anyone's short on time, there's quite a good much shorter version focussing more on the hierarchy/alpha male side of it -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY

[kderbyma]

Obviously. Anyone who has been severely stressed knows it's killing them.....except the doctors who cannot sell you something from their pill sponsors

[cameronh90]

In the UK, doctors will prescribe exercise, therapy, meditation, group activities as well as drugs if appropriate. What else can they do?

The issue isn’t the doctors, it’s that society, or even just the human condition, often makes it impossible to eliminate the source of chronic stress.

[adaptbrian]

My stress based disorder is cluster headaches and they literally feel like death and all I can say is don't rely on doctors to help, diet changes are not in most western based docs playbooks, drugs which cover up and masks the problems are, try heavily modifying diet, start going into ketosis and see if you feel better after a couple months. It took me 8 years and the best healthcare around to reach this point. Cold shock seems to quite stress/inflammation as well. These things are freely available.

Other non drug alternatives: Meditation, acupuncture, camping, horse back riding, walks, runs, swimming all seem effective at lowering stress as well from my exp.

[ghufran_syed]

What do you propose the doctors should do instead in this situation?

[dannyw]

Well at least they’re not prescribing you benzos.

[mike-the-mikado]

It is interesting to note that all higher lifeforms have evolved to die (presumably to avoid out-competing their descendants).

From this perspective, mechanisms that prolong life in favourable circumstances but curtail in difficult times, make sense.

[jijijijij]

> It is interesting to note that all higher lifeforms have evolved to die (presumably to avoid out-competing their descendants).

I need a source on that, because for the most part that's not how evolution works.

At the point of reproduction, the moment genes are passed on, the paternal time of death isn't "known" to natural selection. Generally speaking, there really is no way to put pressure on death like you suggested. Except maybe for some group selection mechanics, where scientific consensus would be far from settled, and it wouldn't qualify for any statement on "all higher lifeforms", anyway.

What's true tho, evolution doesn't care too much about your survival after reproduction, either. So, eg. some early in life adaptations may increase your chances of death later in life - live fast, die young.

But that's really different than saying death has this evolutionary purpose like you suggested. Complicated things just fall apart at some point. That's so much a fact, that large animals like whales and elephants actually do need "anti-cancer" adaptations to bring their plenty of cells into reproductive age.

Also, I think people may be prone to an anachronistic fallacy in regard to dying here. See, 1 in 5 people will die because of cancer, it's a pretty "natural" thing in our lives, but.... human cancer rates are actually mostly down to environmental and lifestyle factors. Before civilization and industrialization cancer was rare. Yes, people live longer to see it happen, but for example lung cancer is almost always attributable to some hazard exposure. Smoking increases your risk by 2000% (!), yet most smokers won't get lung cancer - lung cancer is that rare!

Alcohol, houses on radon soil, highly processed food, VOCs, hexavalent chromium, heavy metals, estrogenic plasticizer, asbestos, sedentary lives, obesity, microplastic, nanoparticles, ... stress. We could have cashed in on maternal and child mortality to fix our stats, but hey: you win, you lose.

[cpncrunch]

The mechanism has not evolved to "curtail life". The changes that happen in the body with activation of the HPA axis and SNS are beneficial in times of stress. They shift glucose towards the muscles, reduce energy use by the digestive system a, and shift the immune system towards innate immunity in order to deal with immediate threats to the body.

[koliber]

I don’t think anything evolved to die. Dying is a prerequisite to evolution. If every individual were to survive, the gene pool would not converge towards more advantageous adaptations. The word “advantageous” means more apt to survive.

[mo_42]

> It is interesting to note that all higher lifeforms have evolved to die (presumably to avoid out-competing their descendants).

I think we need to substantiate this more. Where does "higher" lifeform begin? And is this statement really true?

There are trees older than 4k years and some whales become 200 years old.

[leobg]

One of the most interesting thoughts I have read on hacker news in the last several weeks.

[austin-cheney]

I am not too clear about the connection between cancer cells and immune system response. It is clear the primary correlation between stress and immune deficiency is improper regulation of neurotransmitter GABA. Since that connection is firmly known it could be that improper immune system regulation either spreads the conditions that allow cancer formation or reduces the immune response to fighting cancer.

The primary cause of anxiety is chronic stress. Chronic stress most typically occurs when a fear or aggression memory is stamped in the amygdala in the brain. The left and right amygdalas are asymmetrical and process different tasks in humans, by the way. In a healthy person a fear memory is generated in the amygdala which loops through other areas of the limbic system before coming back to the amygdala with additional emotional processing, but before looping more the fear process is halted by flooding the amygdala with a suppressor, GABA. In unhealthy people GABA is not released into the process at appropriate moments resulting in a run away loop of building negative emotions. GABA is also produced, as a regulator, by the immune system.

As an aside the immune system also produces another neurotransmitter responsible for both immune system excitement that plays an unrelated role of emotional motivation in the brain. That is why antihistamines medications make people drowsy, because suppressing that neurotransmitter via medication occurs in utero.

[jijijijij]

> As an aside the immune system also produces another neurotransmitter responsible for both immune system excitement that plays an unrelated role of emotional motivation in the brain. That is why antihistamines medications make people drowsy

You mean histamine? I think antihistamines make people drowsy, because histamine signaling at the H1-Receptor is involved with regulation of the circadian rhythm [1][2]. As far as I know, histamine is released, as part of the immune system, by mast cells, which have to be triggered by IgE (parasite / "macro stuff" / "allergy") antibodies.

Neither the "H1 receptor", "H1 antagonist", "Histamine", "Tuberomammillary nucleus" nor "Mast cell" Wikipedia article match "GABA".

> because suppressing that neurotransmitter via medication occurs in utero.

What does this even mean? I mean, I don't know...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histamine_H1_receptor#Neurophy...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histamine#Sleep-wake_regulatio...

[IndySun]

The majority of the human race lives with chronic stress. Spreading depends on the cancer and how quick it is caught, the worrying part is barely even negligible - as they point out early on. Can't wait for part two on why happy people live longer. Hokum.

[klyrs]

Lesson I learned from my first adult job: money might not buy happiness, but being broke sure is stressful.

[hsavit1]

In the near future someone will conduct a scientific study on how people who feel sick generally don't live as long

[motyar]

TIL: One more thing to stress about!

[rendaw]

What's the definition of stress?

[amentothat]

Stress is a natural response to danger. All animals exhibit stress. It is manifested as the hormone cortisol in the bloodstream. Cortisol shuts down non-essential operations so that the animal can escape the danger. One of them is digestion, another is the immune system. Once the animal is safe, the body comes back to balance.

The problem is with chronic stress. In humans it is the chronic social stress. The digestion is impaired, the immune system is impaired.

[amentothat]

Watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs

[Solvency]

Bad hormones elevated to pathological levels at all times and chronic inflammation.

[marban]

Elevated levels of Cortisol outside the natural time window.

[Demcox]

Reading the "Myth of Normal" by Gabor Maté opened my eyes for this as a possible explanation.

I highly recommend this for a read on how stress alters the body.

[greyface-]

...in mice. :^)

[m_a_g]

I don't know why you're getting down voted. This is a very important detail.

[djmips]

And people, I am certain.

[floatin]

Great another thing to worry about…

[dham]

Yes, we might have different stresses as a species now, but I'm not sure we have any more stress than we had thousands of years ago.

[thih9]

Thousands of years ago doesn’t seem a good reference point. With advances in science, technology, better shelters and more accessible food - we absolutely should have way less stress today.

[altdataseller]

Humans did not have a long time span thousands of years ago as well…