Breast cancer survivors often blame stress for their disease, a belief that can both help and harm them.
　　But the five-year cancer survivor, mother of two and executive director of the Breast Cancer Survivor Network in Boynton Beach, Fla., believes stress may result in a compromised immune system making it harder for her to fight the disease.
　　Although current scientific evidence says genetics and the environment are stronger determinants of cancer, Parsons attitude about stress mimics what many breast cancer survivors feel about the cause of their cancer.

Stress The Main Cause

In a study of 400 breast cancer survivors who had been disease-free for an average of nine years, 42 percent said stress was one of the main causes of their breast cancer.

Only 27 percent felt genetics was involved, 26 percent attributed a role to the environment, 24 percent blamed hormones and 16 percent thought diet was a contributing factor.

The study, led by Dr. Donna Stewart and associates at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, is being published in the March issue of the medical journal Psycho-Oncology.

“Many women look for explanations of their breast cancer because the cause is unknown,"says Dr. Jennifer Griggs, an oncologist with the University of Rochester Medical School, commenting on the study. “They try to understand why this has happened and may come up with stress as an answer."/p>

Sixty percent of the woman also felt a positive attitude helps prevent cancer recurrence, followed by dietary changes (50 percent), healthy lifestyle (40 percent), exercise (40 percent) and stress reduction (28 percent).

But You Can't Really Control Illness

But the belief that stress is a factor in their disease can be double-edged sword: On the positive side, it can help survivors take control of their lives by making lifestyle changes.

On the negative one, harboring the belief can put too much responsibility on the woman. “Blaming herself for a rather unexplainable disease can be yet another burden on a breast cancer patient’s shoulders, and if the cancer recurs, the women may blame themselves again,"says Griggs.

Stewart says health care professionals and patients should talk about this issue.

The patient’s “views may assist in understanding how she perceives her condition, in encouraging lifestyle changes and in framing disease management in meaningful ways that give a greater sense of personal control,"Stewart says.

In fact, Griggs teaches women who have breast cancer to cope with stress to boost their immune system to prevent metastasis.

Stress has been linked to many diseases, including heart disease, but the association is not clearly established.

This year approximately 182,800 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and 40,800 will die from breast cancer. The biggest risk factor for the disease for women is aging, with family history, early onset of menstruation or late menopause, obesity at menopause and mutations in the BRCA1 and BRACA2 genes as other risk factors.

Having undergone a double mastectomy for her breast cancer, Parsons has made lifestyle changes, including improving her diet, exercising and coping better with stress to help reduce the chances of recurrence.

“I think it makes sense to have a positive attitude and be proactive to reduce the risks of the disease,"Parsons says. “But I don’t think doing all these things will eliminate the risks entirely."/p>

From ABCNews.com