Is Intense Stress Related to the Onset of Brain Cancer? Shedding Some Light on a Literature Gap

Intense stress has a harmful effect on the human body and is considered as a causative factor for a plethora of disorders [1], while regarding cancer the belief that its onset may be associated with a stressful experience is found in the British, French, and United States medical literature at least as far back as 1701 [2]. Apart from these premature scientific hypotheses, there is evidence that a high proportion of the general population also believes that “stress causes cancer” [3]. Nevertheless, this might not be true since it is still unknown if there is a link between stress and cancer’s occurrence. In fact, both epidemiological and molecular biological studies have established that breast cancer is the only type of cancer whose onset could be attributed to intense stress [4,5].