(HealthDay News) -- A diagnosis of prostate cancer (http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/cc/prostatecancer.htm) can be unnerving enough to up a man's odds for either suicide or fatal heart attack (http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/hh/heartattack.htm), new research indicates.
"Unfortunately, the study results didn't surprise us," said study co-author Dr. Lorelei A. Mucci, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "A cancer diagnosis is an acutely distressful event, and acute stress can cause a number of changes in cardiovascular risk factors. Also, if someone has an underlying health condition, the diagnosis may be enough to drive someone to suicide."
That's probably true for other cancer diagnoses, Mucci added, and her group now plans to do a similar study of breast and colon cancer patients. The group started with prostate cancer, she said, to assess whether the widespread use of screening using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has made a difference. Read more...
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