Newspaper Review 4

Date: 18th December 'o8
Newspaper: Straits Times-Mind Your Body
Article: The Link Between Stress And Cancer

Summary:
Dr Ang Peng Tiam says that stress can cause cancer. Evidence from animal and human studies has shown that chronic stress weakens the immune system which is responsible for constant surveillance within our bodies for infections and cancers This system seeks out and destroys abnormal cancer cells which may arise from time to time. When it fails, the cells can go undetected and grow into malignant tumours. There is also some data suggesting that cancer patients who feel helpless and have negative emotions tend to be worse off. The 'bad vibes' promote the growth or spread of cancer, although this relationship was not consistently seen in all the studies.

Reflection
There's now a clear reason as to why the population number in Singapore is decreasing and why people's life span is decreasing as well. Doctor's have said before that the preservatives in the food that we eat can cause cancer. We still are eating preservatives-filled food, so we are all prone to cancer? Now that stress causes cancer, the more we are all prone to cancer! Is the life span of a typical human going to decrease further? The funny and amazing thing about this is that how stress, something that affects us mentally, can affect our body physically. Well, our body is really a wonderful mechanism! Which ever the case, no one can avoid stress no matter how much we try to be stress free or work out the best stress relieving methods, we will all still be stressed to a certain extend. There's nothing that we can do about it and so even the doctor suggests that we be happy and live each day to the fullest!

-NaZiRa