Originally published August 17 2005
Link between fatigue and cancer doesn't exist, study says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to a new study by Danish researchers, fatigue and depression do not lead to an increased risk of developing cancer.
Despite research that depression and fatigue increase the risk of heart attack, a new study suggests they don't heighten the risk of cancer.
In fact, fatigue appears to reduce the risk of some cancers, according to the Danish researchers.
But, the most exhausted people do engage in behaviors associated with a higher cancer risk, according to the report in the Aug. 8 online edition of Cancer.
A team led by Corinna Bergelt, of the Danish Cancer Society's Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, studied individuals to look for a link between a state they called "vital exhaustion" -- characterized by excessive fatigue, lack of energy, increased irritability and a feeling of demoralization -- and cancer.
These people completed a vital exhaustion questionnaire that also evaluated depression.
During almost nine years of follow-up, the investigators looked at all cancers combined: smoking-related cancers, alcohol-related cancers, virus- and immune-related cancers, and hormone-related cancers.
During that follow-up, 976 people developed cancer.
Although, Bergelt's team did find that people who had high vital exhaustion scores engaged in risky behaviors such as smoking and lack of exercise, they didn't find an association between the severity of vital exhaustion and an increased cancer risk.
Cancer experts find these results surprising and think they might be limited to the specific homogeneous Danish group studied.
"It's a bit surprising that we didn't see any relationship between vital exhaustion and cancer," said Kevin Stein, the director of quality of life research at the American Cancer Society.
Another expert, Dr. Julia Smith, associate director of the New York University Cancer Institute's Screening and Prevention Program, agrees the Danish findings can't be applied to other groups of people.
"I am not sure you can conclude, definitively, the incidence of cancer related to depression in 8.6 years," she said.
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