Cancer Prevention: Stress Is Good, for Once

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We’re always talking (and writing) about ways to de-stress. We know that constantly being stressed can have seriously bad implications for our body and our mind, but this news got us all worked up: A new study shows that stressed out mice fought tumors way better than mice that were relaxing all the time. (How do mice relax, exactly?)

Mice were injected with melanoma. Some mice were in a large cage with other mice, lots of toys, and space. Other mice remained in the normal lab cages. Three weeks into the study, the tumors of the mice who were in the more stimulating cage shrank to half their previous size, and they had shrunk 77% in six weeks. The tumors even disappeared in 17% of the mice. The mice in the normal cages had tumors that continued to grow.

So, what’s the balance? We don’t want to be too stressed out, but apparently a little stress is a good thing for us. Maybe tonight we’ll take a nice, long bubble bath. But the whole time we’re in the tub, we’ll worry about what else we should be doing instead.

via Reuters