Stress is part and parcel of life. It is the body’s reaction to a challenge or demand. But chronic stress can be terrible for health.
Chronic stress is known to elevate the risk of heart diseases and stroke, as well as being associated with cancer progression.
The process by which stress contributes to the spread of cancer has for long remained a mystery. However, a recent investigation conducted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Cancer Center, simulating chronic stress in mice with cancer, has made a significant breakthrough in understanding this mechanism.
The study was carried out by Adjunct Professor Mikala Egeblad (now a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor with Johns Hopkins University) postdoc Xue-Yan He (now Assistant Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis) and CSHL Professors Linda Van Aelst, David Spector, and Christopher Vakoc.
According to the researchers, when under stress, hormones called glucocorticoids prompt neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, to create spider-web-like structures known as NETs (neutrophil extracellular traps). These sticky web-like structures increase the susceptibility of body tissues to metastasis, a process associated with cancer spread.
The researchers contemplate that if future drugs are designed to inhibit the formation of NETs, they could prove advantageous for patients in the early stages of cancer, where metastasis has not yet occurred.
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