Dear all

Just some thoughts on whether stress causes disease or not.

There are many factors that can contribute to disease. Among these are
environmental, genetic, behavioral and so on. However we are talking about
across a population.

For example, if we look at people who develop lung cancer we can find a much
higher chance that they will have been smokers that people who never develop
lung cancer. Yet all of us can cite a person we know who never had a single puff
of a cigarette and yet got lung cancer, and another person who smoked like a
trooper from age five and is still hale and healthy at the age of ninety. Causal
factors in a population are not the same as causal factors in an individual.

We can apply the same argument to breast and bottle feeding. We know that asthma
and bottle feeding are linked, yet we also know that not all children who bottle
feed will get asthma and also that some babies exclusively breast fed will get
asthma.

I think the problem arises when we get into the very individualistic notion of
healthy lifestyles and individual responsibility for health that is around now.
This can lead to both self blame and societal labeling if someone does get an
illness.

And in a circular way it gets back to the issue of stress and illness. Is it
associated, almost certainly. And in a individual, well who knows? It may be or
it may not be. Depends on the individual case. Applying population based risk
data to an individual is a risky business....

Best regards
Dr. Mary E Black
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