Cancer Related to Loss?

I was reading the Dana Reeve thread, and started to put two and two together. With the exception of environmentally-induced cancers, most of the people I've known who contracted cancer did so within a year after a significant loss in their lives -- spouse, parent, lifelong job, whatever. I wonder is loss itself triggers something that creates an environment where cancer can flourish, and if so, whether there might be some way to "reverse engineer" what's causing it, and figure out some way to block or negate what loss produces.

I've believed for some time now that all diseases will get you when you are down. Stress will bring you down. What can be more stressful than losing someone ?

An interesting topic. Grief is an odd thing. Sometimes it makes you wonder if it's possible to "will yourself sick". The phenomenon among older people is not uncommon at all...husband of 55 years passes on...wife is gone shortly after. The causes vary...from heart failure to stroke, cancer or any other among myriad causes.

If among younger couples, cancer is a leading cause...then it would certainly merit some research, I would think.

I think there's a lot to that, Craig. On my dad' s side of the family there were two that were always bitter, and angry about things, my Dad and one aunt. They're both gone now, checked out way too early.

Even saw it in my dogs last year. The first one got a lieukemia and died around Christmas. His brother started moping around more and more, and he was gone a couple months later (the vet couldn't find anything wrong with him).

My girlfriend is an RN and she's seen this type of thing over and over too.

I'm not saying that this is the cause of Dana Reeve's illness, but chronic, excessive stress is a proven factor in the development of disease. It can lead to cardiovascular disease, poor immune system function (which may lead to cancer cells not being killed off in an early stage of development by the body's normal defenses), the onset of so-called "mental" disorders of many types and on and on and on...yes, even to death.

Google "Hans Selye". His work was some of the earliest in the study of the effects of stress. There has been much study since, but his work is a good starting point and introduction.

Rick

There was a recent article that showed incontrovertible evidence of spouses of ill people being much more likely to die sooner than one would otherwise.

CNN link

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A husband or wife with a debilitating illness can hasten your own death, a study suggests.

...

It found that the risk is considerable: Men were 4.5 percent more likely than usual to die on any given day after their wives were hospitalized; women with sick husbands were almost 3 percent more likely to die.

If the sick spouse dies, the partner's risk of death -- whether from accidents, suicide, infections or pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes -- shoots up fivefold, rising by 21 percent for men and 17 percent for women, the researchers said.

- Jeff

There is actually a sub-field in neuroscience, PNI, psychoneuroimmunology -- which explores the interaction between the immune system and the nervous system on, not only a mechanical, but a behavioral level

[caveat : PNI is occasionally a word that gets bandied about in the holistic community as scientific justification...which is fine..but the research I'm talking about is pure science research, published in journals like nature neurosciene as opposed to research applied to toward a particular philosophy]

There' really good evidence that the immune system and even cognitive portions of the nervous system aren't really seperate

While I don't know (nor would I have cause to) of any pecific work regarding stress and TNF cytokines...I think it's reasonable to suspect (given the body of work with species of IL-1) that there is some PNI activity

Other than the environmental causes you allude to, I don't think cancer, per-se, comes about from stress, but, if the seeds are already there, the stress causes the body's immune system to fight that, and the resultant other virii and infections, allowing the cancer to flourish.

There is no doubt in my mind that high stress levels will allow the beast to flourish and I can use my personal experiences as an example.

I am very vague on this, and thus not in the least scientific in my approach; I once saw a tv program which featured cancer patients and their lives. Bear in mind that this is but a very fragmented memory but one of the people on the program decsribed how her mother died of cancer a year after a serious car accident. She had recovered from her injuries and yet was dead after a year. The person relating this story went on to describe how something similar had happened to others - a car crash or similar trauma and then a year later you were dead from cancer. If memory serves me correctly the narrative content of the program was drawn from a poem by Heathcote Williams, in which he questioned our dependence on the automobile.

Thanks for the acronym! Looks like these folks are building a multi-disciplinary program along those lines.

http://www.iib.uiuc.edu/program/index.cfm

my pleasure, it's neat stuff

I don't know if there is a lot lot of web information, but the Rudy lab in (CU) Boulder, CO did/does a lot of great work in this area

Jerry Rudy is also a good flatpicker!

Yeah I thought about that too. I don't think it's at all limited to spouses; from what I've seen it's about losing people in whom you have a huge emotional investment.

Both my grandmothers lost a son to something, and each was gone soon thereafter. One's son died in an accident, and within a few months she started developing Alzheimers. The other's son died of cancer, and again within a couple years she passed on.

I've noticed the connection too - I think people can lose the will to live after losing a spouse.

Cancer is a strange thing. It's basically a modern western disease, despite the misguided belief of the western doctors that they know everything. People should die of old age, not cancer or heart diesease.

I believe it is cause and effect. We dig our graves with our knives and forks. The food industry supplies the guns and ammunition, and we shoot ourselves in the head. The drug companies and their pet doctors make hay while the sun shines.

I genuinely believe that we "catch cancer" every day of our lives - from the numerous natural carcinogens around us. Burnt toast anyone? Whiff of petrol?

But - in a normal healthy body, our body deals with these cancers daily too.

But habitual chronic consumption of toxic, non-edible food places enormous strain on our bodies. (The more you learn about how our foods are made, the more you understand that we are trying to sustain ourselves with toxic, inedible food). Even if you decide to eat nothing but fruit and veges - the administration has dealt to these by allowing numerous toxins and genetic modifactions to ensure that thinking bugs and pests won't eat the {censored}.

Stress (good and bad) and emotions (good and bad) create chemicals that either heal or harm us.

I believe when a spouse dies, it's fairly common for the partner to fall into unhealthy patterns that all conspire to finish them off. And maybe that's what they want, and maybe it's a good thing.

I am absolutely convinced that we are spiritual beings in a body, and that life goes on after death of the body. I also believe the centre of our memories and intelligence reside in the spirit, not the brain. So as far as music and stuff goes - yes, you can take it with you.

There certainy are a number of thoughts that way

everything from cooking food to NOT cooking food

even eating the viable parts of beings be they plant or aminal has been brought up as creating both physical and spiritual penalty

even moving from a paleolithic to a neolithic diet ha been brought forward the "the point of derailment" by some

I wonder what kind of stats we see among pets and pet owners (either way) or other social animals ("The secret life of dogs" has an aminal [sic ] anecdote)

There is evidence to suggest that Alzheimers may be linked to increased IL-1 (AIDS related dementia as well)

My brother died in 1975 in a motorbike crash aged 23. My mother died of Alzhiemer's disease in 2000. The rot set in soon after my brother's death, but none of us realised this until the horror of her living death became manifest many years later. My sister and I have since made a pact whereby if one of us displays the symptoms of Alzhiemer's the other one will kill them. No jury will convict and God will have some serious questions to answer.

I wish death and suffering were that easy but I think it depends on the individual. There is some truth in what you say though because again for some individuals, it is in sync.

The old saying "laughter is the best medicine" is kind of on topic here. I'm not so sure there isn't at least some connection to ones state of emotional health and that of their physical health. That being said, probably there are plenty of cases of very happy people who have contacted an illness and died much too young.

Too many Happy Meals?

You are, in essence, taking in energy from whatever living thing you are eating, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.

~~~~~~~~~~

Severe grief can weaken the body/mind/spirit, allowing ailments to bubble up to the surface, no longer strong enough to keep them at bay.

At least, that's the theory that I'm going to throw against the wall this evening.

Oh I definitely don't doubt there is a connection, not just with cancer but any ailment. I've seen it happen too many times that someone loses a loved one, particularly a spouse, and die or become severely ill shortly thereafter. I've seen some of the studies like the one Jeff cited, too.

In a way I consider those folks fortunate to have loved somebody so much they couldn't live without that person. It sure beats living a long life with someone you couldn't care less about or makes you miserable.

I also believe in reincarnation and that kind of thing, so I think that spouses (really happy loving ones that is) can have unconscious agreements that when one dies the other should shortly thereafter so they can be together again sooner.

But at the very least it's reasonable to assume that the stress of the loss could easily cause someone's immune system to break down and be vulnerable to all sorts of disease. That seems to be beyond doubt.

This cannot be, because it is impossible for humans to subsist and grow without consuming other life - be that plant or animal.

If you're gonna kill a chicken to eat it, how does it create more spiritual penalty to eat the heart than to eat the thigh? After all, you (either in person or by proxy) are already responsible for taking its life.

I have heard that everyone has cancer all the time, that cancer cells normally exist within every human body.

Normally, the immune system is able to kill them before they can flourish, but if the immune system is weakened by age, disease, or stress, cancerous cells may get the advantage.

Obviously, all cancer is not the same, and there are many sources, from the body's own anomolies to external irritants and viruses.

But the notion that aging, stress, and depression can weaken the body's ability to keep its naturally occuring population of cancer cells in check makes a lot of sense. So it's not as if the loss of a spouse gives you cancer, but it may take away your ability to eliminate the cancer you already have.

I forget the exact number, but I have heard that by the time a medical test can detect cancer, it has already replicated into the millions of cells, I believe.

-plb

What the Fruitarian (fructarian to the old-schoolers) deal is is to, basically, eat plant materials that are shed as opposed to the core of the plant...fruits being a prime example.

Now the modern fruitarian movement gets caught up with raw foodism and stuff that isn't really core to the concept and merely serves to confuse the issue

u are, in essence, taking in energy from whatever living thing you are eating, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.

There is the question of "disposed energy" and, in the case of certain fruit using animal transport of seeds "given energy"

which does bring up some issues

and, there is debate among camp as to if and when seedsand grains are considered viable in their own right (much like the human abortion issue) and when it's OK to eat fruits (ie does it need to fall from the tree, does the visible part of the mushroom constitute it's fruit and when)

Stupid factoid...Steve Jobs used to be a fruitarian...which i how a certain company got its name!

I have seen lots of people get sick and die in the part time job I have as a church musician. Many people get ill and suffer for many years. I have noticed that most of them with great dispositions before the illness somehow remain good tempered and still have a sense of humor about them. I have no clue how they do it. On the other hand I have seen people who were on the private side get ill and you never see them again because they don`t want people to see them ill. To each his own basically but I admire how some people do deal with suffering. I never want to be in that position but at the same time, I have asked some of them how they do it and they often bring up Jesus. I`m not religious by any means even though I work in a church but I have to believe that their belief gets them through such devasting times.