The glucocorticoids released during chronic stress cause neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation and establish a metastasis-promoting microenvironment. Therefore, NETs could be targets for preventing metastatic recurrence in cancer patients.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1535610824000370?via%3Dihub
Isn’t metastasis the mechanism of spread? If so, this is more specific than “stress gives you cancer.” It’s more like, if you happen to already have cancer, avoiding stress can slow it down.
Yes, metastasis refers to the spread of cancer. This study speaks of the adverse effects of stress for people with cancer.
My apologies, I meant to add that reply to one of the comments. Thanks for sharing!
This part was interesting too. It sounds like stress-induced NET formation can be shown to alter structures over time. I’ll have to read more about it.
Yes. That’s indeed interesting.
Humans actually develop cancerous cells very regularly. Our immune system can fight it off more often than not, but obviously not all the time. It makes sense that being stressed would make it worse, just like being stressed makes you more likely to be sick in general.