Positive Thinking May Protect Against Breast Cancer

Main Category: Breast Cancer
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry;  Preventive Medicine
Article Date: 25 Aug 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Feelings of happiness and optimism play a positive role against breast cancer. Research published in the open access journal BMC Cancer suggests that while staying positive has a protective role, adverse life events such as the loss of a parent or close relative, divorce or the loss of a spouse can increase a woman's risk of developing the disease.

Ronit Peled from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, led a team of researchers who questioned 255 women with breast cancer and 367 healthy controls about their life experiences and evaluated their levels of happiness, optimism, anxiety and depression prior to diagnosis. Peled said, "Young women who have been exposed to a number of negative life events should be considered an 'at-risk' group for breast cancer and should be treated accordingly".

The researchers do point out that women were interviewed after their diagnosis, which may colour their recall of their past emotional state somewhat negatively. However, according to Peled, "We can carefully say that experiencing more than one severe and/or mild to moderate life event is a risk factor for breast cancer among young women. On the other hand, a general feeling of happiness and optimism can play a protective role".

The authors point out that, "The mechanism in which the central nervous, hormonal and immune systems interact and how behaviour and external events modulate these three systems is not fully understood". As such, they suggest that "The relationship between happiness and health should be examined in future studies and relevant preventative initiatives should be developed".

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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1. Breast cancer , psychological distress and life events among young women.
Ronit Peled, Devora Carmil, Orly Siboni-Samocha and Ilana Shoham-Vardi
BMC Cancer (in press)
Article available at the journal website:http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmccancer/
All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

2. BMC Cancer is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of research relating to cancer, including molecular biology, genetics, pathophysiology, epidemiology, clinical reports, and controlled trials. BMC Cancer (ISSN 1471-2407) is indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, CAS, Scopus, EMBASE, Thomson Reuters (ISI) and Google Scholar.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.

Source: Graeme Baldwin
BioMed Central