[0:00] Welcome, my name is Dr. Warrick Bishop. I'm a cardiologist, an author and a keynote speaker. I'm CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people [0:12] Live as well as possible. [0:13] for as long as possible. [0:15] Heart disease is huge in Australia. [0:18] Every 20 minutes someone suffers a heart attack. Most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. [0:26] This podcast is all about helping you understand blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, and [0:32] for better health. [0:33] If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honoured for a 5-star review. [0:37] you can share it with your family and friends. It may well save [0:41] Someone you love. [0:42] Hi, Dr. Warrick here. I hope you're well. Welcome to the Healthy Life Network and thank you for joining me on my podcast and videocast station. I'm always really grateful if you find the time that you find what I share valuable. So here we go. Got a really interesting one. This came across my desk and I thought I'd grab it and share it. And what it's about is stress and cancer. So [1:12] Set that up and away we go. [1:18] Many of us would [1:20] intuitively think that stress and cancer are closely linked, but there have actually been. [1:27] studies and research into that. And fairly recently, there was a large meta-analysis looking at over 400,000 people [1:37] And what I'd like to do is share with you exactly what that demonstrated. [1:44] So it turns out that the majority of people actually believe that chronic stress causes cancer. In fact, approximately 50% if you were to undertake a survey on the street and... [1:59] The belief that... [2:02] um well some of the science behind why we hold on to this belief is that humans need to explain the tragedy we like to think of the world having some sort of meaning or connection as opposed to [2:17] events being completely isolated. [2:21] cancer and life stresses do appear to peak at the same time, so it's not unreasonable to think that... [2:28] Stress could be a trigger for cancer because, well, they seem to be associated in people. But... [2:36] But it does turn out that [2:38] The age that people will be when they get their cancer is often an age in their lives where they may be stressed [2:44] any way. [2:46] There is often the situation as to why we hold on to this belief that many powerful anecdotes about people who are very stressed are shared. And so we hear of people saying, [3:01] who get cancer and then those people are described as stressed out of their brains or having gone through particular traumas or stresses or strains and it makes perfect sense that perhaps they've developed cancer and some doctors... [3:17] In fact, many doctors quietly believe that stress is also directly linked to cancer. [3:23] So... [3:25] There is a general feel that stress and cancer are closely linked and people will say things like, if only I'd been less stressed... [3:34] which is potentially a damaging belief. And why is that? Well, this study that I'm referring to and that came across my desk in a summarised way looked at 22 pages. [3:47] cohorts or studies around the world capturing over 400 [3:52] thousand people. And that related to... [3:56] Over 35% [3:58] thousand cancers and what they were looking at were five stress metrics or five stress domains. One of them was in regard to relationship status. [4:12] the next perceived social support [4:17] The next was family bereavement, specifically within the last 12 months. [4:24] The next was general distress. And the last domain or metric was neuroticism or just being highly anxious all the time. [4:33] The individual participant data was what was pooled and assessed across these cohorts. And that's really quite a powerful way to do it and gave some better evaluation in this particular study when it comes to trying to find or ascertain that link between stress and cancer. [4:54] Well, this is what the researchers found. And if you're listening, as I was when I was reading, I'm thinking, gosh, what's going to be the surprise here? Well, it turns out that the researchers in this huge meta-analysis found no direct link. [5:11] between stress [5:13] and cancer, in spite of what many of us [5:17] believe exists. Neuroticism, or high degrees of anxiety, had no clear link to any cancer type at all. General distress, no clear link to any cancer type at all. And... [5:34] These findings actually held once the cohorts were adjusted for age, sex, education and countries. [5:43] This is really, really important. What was found was the nuance of lung cancer perhaps being [5:53] more likely in low levels. [5:56] social support situations, in bereavement and being... [6:01] in bereavement situations and being single, potentially being [6:06] linked to lung cancer as well. And [6:09] But really these... [6:13] associations largely disappeared after accounting for the smoking, which seemed to be the case that stressed people smoked more [6:22] And the actual culprit was the smoking, not the stress. [6:27] So how does stress hurt us? Well, we know it hurts us. It's not good for us. It's certainly not good for our cardiovascular health. So we... [6:35] We know in cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety, these things do drive increased risk of cardiovascular disease, or at least as far as we know at the moment. But when it comes to cancer, stress... [6:47] can drive or stress through things like social isolation, bereavement and chronic anxiety, can then drive behaviours which are then the driver for cancer risk. And those behaviours are things like alcohol consumption, smoking, alcohol, [7:05] poor sleep and poor diet. [7:08] And that gets reflected in an increased cancer risk. So the stress itself is not the cancer risk. It's the coping mechanisms from that stress that can lead to the behaviours that can then be the risk factors. [7:22] So... [7:25] I think this is really important. What does it mean? It means that if, for example, you or someone you know or love has had a cancer diagnosis, [7:33] Don't. [7:35] Blame yourself. [7:37] if you were stressed or [7:41] really tense or uptight or, um, [7:45] really going through life's challenges [7:48] You are not to blame. It's just important to understand that many cancers are just bad luck and you didn't make it. [7:59] What it also means is that the coping habits when you are stressed really, really matter. Things like pushing alcohol, pushing smoking, not exercising, not sleeping well. These are the things that really tie in to your future well-being and your future risk, either of cancer or cardiovascular disease. [8:20] does underline how important it is to stay connected. And social support has... [8:27] and was and will continue to be linked to better outcomes. Isolation is a meaningful risk factor in all sorts of outcome data. And we know from the Harvard Longevity Study that connection is an incredible driver for isolation. [8:47] living as well as possible for as long as possible. And really importantly, manage stress anyway. It may not cause cancer, but it really saps the energy from the quality of your life, and it really will have an impact on many people and the behaviours they choose to take. [9:05] Well, I hope you found this an interesting presentation. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. [9:11] It is really important to understand that if you have gone through a cancer journey, or if you know someone who's gone through a cancer journey, they really shouldn't be blaming themselves for being too stressed as causing their own situation. They can let themselves off the hook. [9:30] *gasp* [9:32] I'm going to wrap it up there. I hope you found this valuable. I really do appreciate your time. I would love it if you could like and share this, particularly with people who you think it might be relevant for. If you have any queries or questions, drop me a note at info at drorichbishop.online. Until next time, I wish you the very best. I hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now. [10:02] Hi. Ever wondered what your risk of heart attack is? You should. It's the single biggest killer in the Western world. We're talking one death. [10:11] less than every 30 minutes in Australia one death [10:15] less than every 60 seconds in the United States, nine [10:19] million deaths globally per annum. Well, how do you check your risk? Well, you can go to [10:27] www.virtualheartcheck.com.au. You'll find out about your risk and what can be done beyond that to be even more precise.