Social Isolation and Cancer

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Nobody wants to be left alone, especially when they are battling a deadly disease. A new study shows social isolation can cause tumors in the body to grow at an increased rate. 

Scientists at the University of Chicago took mice that were predisposed to develop breast cancer and raised them in two different environments, in groups and by themselves. When the mice were re-evaluated, the researchers found the isolated mice grew larger mammary gland tumors and had a disrupted stress hormone response.

"This interdisciplinary research illustrates that the social environment, and a social animal's response to that environment, can indeed alter the level of gene expression in a wide variety of tissues, not only the brain," Suzanne D. Conzen, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and senior author of the study, was quoted as saying. "This is a novel finding and may begin to explain how the environment affects human susceptibility to other chronic diseases such as central obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, etc."

SOURCE: Cancer Prevention Research, September 30, 2009

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