Way to go Wake Forest University scientists -- for adding to the body of evidence connecting stress to illness and for reporting before anyone else that the stress hormone epinephrine causes changes in prostate and breast cancer cells that may make them resistant to death.Emotional stress contributes not only to the development of cancer, says lead researcher George Kulik, D.V.M., Ph.D, but it also reduces the effectiveness of cancer treatments.
Previous research shows levels of epinephrine, produced by the adrenal glands, are sharply increased during stressful situations and can stay elevated during long-term stress and depression.
During this study, published in the on-line Journal of Biological Chemistry, Kulik and colleagues found that a protein called BAD -- the cause of cell death -- becomes inactive when cancer cells are exposed to epinephrine.
This is huge for patients and researchers.
"It may be important for patients who have increased responses to stress to learn to manage the effects," said Kulik. "And, the results point to the possibility of developing an intervention to block the effects of epinephrine."
