I’ve always thought about cancer in a way that’s a bit different from most people. Sure, when I picture what causes it, my mind hits the usual suspects: smoking, drinking, carrying a few extra kilos, or maybe some unlucky twist in my DNA. I also think about poor diet—too much junk food and not enough of the good stuff—along with nutritional deficiencies, like missing out on key vitamins or minerals that keep your body humming. And then there’s toxins, those sneaky chemicals in the air, water, or food that creep into our lives.
Sometimes I even imagine cosmic rays ( more likely 5G) zapping the wrong cell at the wrong time—just bad luck. But stress? That’s always been on my radar too. I’ve long suspected it plays a bigger role than people give it credit for. And now, it feels good to see studies starting to catch up and validate what I’ve been thinking all along—especially since I’ve always seen stress management as a lifestyle choice worth making.
It really hit home during a conversation I had with my friend Arni Lasi. She’s a breast cancer surgeon, brilliant at what she does, and honestly, she’s seen it all. We were grabbing coffee one afternoon, and I asked her what she thinks causes cancer. Without missing a beat, she said, “Stress.” I nodded—it wasn’t news to me—but I let her go on. She told me about her patients—women showing up with breast cancer out of nowhere. No family history, no obvious genetic red flags, often young.
And yet, there’s this pattern she can’t ignore: stress. A messy divorce, a parent’s death, a brutal work schedule—these stories come up again and again. Arni’s convinced there’s a connection, not because of some textbook, but because she’s seen it too many times to call it coincidence. I’ve always felt the same way, though I’d add poor diet, deficiencies, toxins to the mix and most importantly chronic inflammation, and hearing her say it out loud only reinforced what I already believed.
Then I came across this new study that’s proving my point about stress in a big way. It was in JAMA Network Open, led by a researcher named Stefan Ambs from the National Cancer Institute. They studied 121 women with breast cancer—65 White, 56 Black, average age around 56—and dug deep into how stress messes with the body. The way they described it, it was like a detective story unfolding in their blood and tumours. They tested everything: immune markers, DNA, RNA, you name it. And the focus? Stress, broken down into four pieces—everyday grind like work and family, racial discrimination, loneliness, and living in tough neighborhoods.
What I found out just confirmed what I’ve suspected for years. Stress doesn’t just sit there in your head—it rewires your immune system in ways that roll out the red carpet for cancer. For one, it ramps up stuff like angiopoietins, which sounds harmless until you realize they’re like fuel for tumors, helping them grow blood vessels to stay alive. Then there’s what’s happening right around the tumor—like the neighborhood it’s setting up shop in. Stress turns the good guys, like natural killer cells that hunt down cancer, into benchwarmers, while letting the lazy ones, the ones that actually protect the tumor, take over.
It’s like firing the best cops in town and replacing them with guys who’d rather nap than fight crime. I’ve always thought stress could do something like that—on top of what a bad diet, missing nutrients, or toxins might already be doing—and now here’s the proof:
https://ianbrighthope.substack.com/p/stress-and-cancerevidence