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Research: SAMPSON, Stanford Univers
Listed in Issue 89
Abstract
SAMPSON, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA, reviews (46 references) controversies in cancer and the mind, particularly the effects of psychosocial support.
Background
Interest in effects of consciousness on health and illness has generated several lines of enquiry into the mind and cancer. In animal studies, some cancers were sensitive to hormonal and stress influences but these findings did not translate into humans. Major surveys found no relationship between stress and cancer generation or growth, such as were hypothesized to occur through neuro-immunologic mechanisms. The proposal of a typical ‘cancer personality’ was also not confirmed, and neither were initial observations that depression and stress affected cancer.
Methodology
Results
The last of these hypotheses to survive was that psychosocial support affected longevity and the course of cancer. Initial positive results were not confirmed, and it is concluded that psychosocial support may result in better adjustment and quality of life but does not directly affect the evolution of human cancer.
Conclusion
References
Sampson W . Controversies in cancer and the mind: effects of psychosocial support. Seminars in Oncology 29 (6): 595-600, Dec 2002.
Comment
These are complicated issues not easily studied nor results readily generalized into the huge numbers of people developing cancer over their lifetime. One cannot ignore the large body of evidence already established regarding Psychoneuroimmunology nor dismiss the potential links between stress, personality and cancer; however, there is a fine line between positing these relationships and cancer patients ending up blaming themselves for causing their cancer or not curing it successfully.
