Does Psychological Stress Cause ‘Cancer’?

Psychological stress is the mental, physical and emotional pressure experienced by the person. In recent years, our lifestyle as become more stressful compared with that in the past. The occurrence of cancer is also increasing rapidly in recent years. The rapidity as increased to such an extent that each of us has one or the other relative suffering from cancer. The purpose of the present review is to correlate stress as a major cause for cancer. Dr. Hamer, a German oncologist, developed cancer in the late 70s, shortly after his son’s death. On that basis he began to investigate the history of his cancer patients and found that they too had a traumatic experience before being diagnosed with cancer. After studying over 40000 cases, over a number of years, he developed the theory that every disease originates from a shock or trauma. Interaction between emotions and immune functions might underlie the increased clinical susceptibility to infectious diseases or malignant tumours. Thus, better understanding of the interaction between the neuroendocrine and immune system in the development of cancer will help us to invent new treatment strategies for cancer.