Spouses of cancer patients experience significant declines in their own physical health. To better understand why, researchers studied husbands of “in remission” breast cancer patients as well as the husbands of breast cancer patients facing cancer recurrence. Surprisingly, wives’ breast cancer recurrence status (remission vs. recurrence) was unrelated to husbands’ physical health. Rather, husbands’ physical health and immune function deteriorated when they worried about their wives’ cancer, regardless of whether the cancer was in remission.
Gregorio, S. W.-D., Carpenter, K. M., Dorfman, C. S., Yang, H.-C., Simonelli, L. E., & Carson, W. E. (in press). Impact of breast cancer recurrence and cancer-specific stress on spouse health and immune function. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2011.07.237
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