Common theme among cancer patients that strikes YEARS before a diagnosis, according to experts READ MORE: America's cancer crisis in numbers By Maiya Focht Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com Published: 15:24 EDT, 2 July 2024 | Updated: 15:28 EDT, 2 July 2024 e-mail 1 View comments Years of smoking cigarettes, binge drinking and over-eating. These are all factors that cause cancer .
Over time, these habits are thought to cause damage to DNA and weaken our body's defenses - creating the perfect environment for tumors to form. But research is beginning to suggest that a single, traumatic event might be linked to developing the deadly disease years later. A bitter divorce, family death or severe injury can create a lasting impression on you, dampening how you respond to stress for the rest of your life and potentially increasing your risk for cancer.
Women who experienced a traumatic event, like a car crash or assault, and had symptoms of PTSD, had a two-fold higher risk for developing ovarian cancer than woman who were not traumatized, a 2019 study of over 54,000 women found. Studies investigating the link between stress and cancer have yielded mixed results. But some doctors believe that stress might indirectly increase cancer risk by weakening the immune system and making people more likely to pick up behaviors like smoking A 2022 study of 278 patients found that the majority of patients diagnosed with head, neck and pancreatic cancer had dealt with a different, major stressful.
