Stress at work very unlikely to cause cancer

Work-related stress is not directly linked to the development of colorectal, lung, breast or prostate cancers, but can cause other contributing factors, according to a new study published on bmj.com

Around 90 per cent of cancers are linked to environmental exposures and whilst some exposures are well recognised (such as UV radiation and tobacco smoke), others are not (psychological factors such as stress).

Stress can cause chronic inflammation which has been shown to have various roles in the development of cancer, plus stressed individuals are more likely to smoke, consume excessive amounts of alcohol and be obese – all of which are cancer risk factors.

So far, only a few studies have examined the associations between work-related stress and cancer risk. These also had unclear conclusions.

Researchers from the IPD-Work Consortium, led by University College of London (UCL) and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, therefore carried out a meta-analyses from 12 independent European studies involving 116,000 participants aged 17 to 70, between 1985 and 2008 in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and the UK. One of the participating cohort studies is the Whitehall II study of British civil servants.

"Reducing work stress may improve the well-being of the employees, but it is unlikely to have a marked impact on cancer burden at population-level," says professor Mika Kivimäki, UCL Epidemiology & Public Health