Australian scientists have shown that ‘stress acts as a fertiliser for cancer‘ - it induces signaling in the sympathetic nervous system and drives cancer progression. It actually restructures lymphatic networks within and around tumours to provide pathways for tumour cell escape.
“Not only do you get new freeways out of the tumour but the speed limit is increased and so the tumour cells can flow out of the tumour much more rapidly," said one of the study’s authors, Dr. Erica Sloan from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Indeed, several systems play a part. Tumour cells provide VEGFC, which is essential for stress to cause this lymphatic remodeling via the COX-2 inflammatory pathway.
When SNS signalling is stopped, it blocks the effect of chronic stress on lymphatic remodelling in vivo in mice and reduces lymphatic metastasis in preclinical cancer models and in patients with breast cancer.
Put simple stress causes the nervous system to ‘communicate’ with inflamed cells and that regulates whether or not tumour cells get released into the lymph. Thus a reduction in stress would cause a reduction in metastases, a conclusion we have already covered from UCLA, where stress management courses were seen as essential routes to increased survival in cancer patients.
At CANCERactive, we have long told you that stress is a driver of cancer, even though such ‘expert bodies’ such as the World Health Organisation and Cancer Research UK dismiss stress as playing a part. Chris Woollams was even attacked by Skeptic troll Josephine Jones in her review of his best selling book ‘Everything you need to know to help you beat cancer’, for daring to say stress played a part in cancer.
The Science of Epigenetics has also shown that cancer can be caused by four ‘drivers’ – environmental toxins, poor diet, stress and hormones such as oestrogen. These are the the same influences as Woollams outlined in the Four Pillars of Cancer back in 2004. John Vane won a Nobel Prize in 1982 for his work that showed Cortisol could turn on a enzyme Cox-2 in every cell of the body causing the release of localised inflammatory hormones. This inflammation helps cancer to spread.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist and founder of CANCERactive added,
"There’s just too much research to ignore. Researchers from Ontario showed in 2016 that stress turned on a neuropeptide causing cancer spread, and UCLA have repeatedly shown that ’Stress Management’ increases cancer survival." Go to: Stress Management significantly increases cancer survival
Cancer Watch March 2016 CHRONIC STRESS REMODELS THE LYMPH SYSTEM TO AID CANCER SPREAD