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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 almost 7 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. A study by the California Department of Health and Human Services found that cancer patients without strong social ties were three more times likely to die earlier than their socially active counterparts.

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. A landmark study of women with advanced breast cancer, conducted at Stanford University, found that those who attended weekly support groups lived an average of 18 months longer than those who didn't. "I almost fell out of my chair," said psychiatrist David Spiegel, the leader of the study. "Those women who had the weekly support group lived, on average, twice as long as the other group of women who didn't have the support group."

A later study at UCLA of patients with malignant melanoma found an equally remarkable trend. Patients who participated in group therapy were three times more likely to be alive five to six years later than those who didn't receive therapy.

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.

The bottom line, according to Dr. Spiegel, is that 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 defenses the body deploys, scientists have long wondered whether the mental condition made people more vulnerable to cancer. Early studies had mixed results; then a 1998 study of 4,825 people ages 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 from the National Institute of Aging 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.

-- Chris Woolston, M.S., is a health and medical writer with a master's degree in biology. He is a contributing editor at Consumer Health Interactive, and was the staff writer at Hippocrates, a magazine for physicians. He has also covered science issues for Time Inc. Health, WebMD, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. His reporting on occupational health earned him an award from the northern California Society of Professional Journalists.

Further Resources

National Institute of Mental Health

5600 Fishers Lane

Rockville, MD 20857

Phone: (800) 421-4211

National Foundation for Depressive Illness, Inc.

P.O. Box 2257

New York, NY 10016

Phone: (800) 826-3632

References

First published January 12, 2000
Last updated January 28, 2008
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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