Chris Woolston
CONSUMER HEALTH INTERACTIVE

Note: This article has been localised for an Irish audience.

For cancer patients, depression means much more than just a dark mood. The illness, which strikes about 25 percent of all cancer patients (compared with 10 percent of the general public), can sap a person's immune system, weakening the body's ability to cope with disease. Patients fighting both depression and cancer feel distressed, tend to have trouble with everyday tasks, and often can't follow medical advice. Indeed, doctors believe that depression, if left untreated, can shorten a cancer patient's life.

Yes, according to researchers. When a person suffers from cancer and depression, treatment for the mind can give the rest of the body a huge boost. Studies in America have found that women with advanced breast cancer who attended weekly support groups lived an average of 18 months longer than those who didn't.

Antidepressants may also play an important role in the fight against cancer. An Israeli study recently found that antidepressants increased the levels of natural killer-cells -- soldiers of the immune system that destroy cancer cells and other intruders -- in a group of cancer patients.

Treating depression in cancer patients not only eases symptoms of pain, nausea, and fatigue, it may help them live longer and enjoy a better quality of life.

Since depression can hamper natural killer-cells (lymphocytes that kill cancer cells and microbes) and other natural body defences scientists have long wondered whether the mental condition made people more vulnerable to cancer. Early studies had mixed results; then a 1998 American study of 4,825 people aged 71 and over provided the first strong evidence that long-term depression could actually increase the risk of cancer. After taking into account factors such as age, sex, race, disabilities, alcohol use, and smoking, researchers found that subjects who had been chronically depressed for at least six years had an 88 percent greater risk of developing cancer within the following four years. The researchers cautioned that further studies would be needed to prove any cause and effect.

Irish Cancer Society. Tel. 01 668 1855.

AWARE-helping to defeat depression. Tel. 01 6766166.

This article has been revised by Vhihealthe for its audience and may contain, among other things, information or medical practices that are unique to Ireland. Neither Consumer Health Interactive nor the original author make any warranty as to the accuracy of the article as revised, and assume no responsibility for modified content.

First published June 21, 2001
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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