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 Now, a study released on Monday shows that survivors suffer an
elevated risk of cancer, especially lung and colorectal
malignancies.
Israeli researchers examined the medical records of more than
152,000 holocaust survivors over more than 45 years and compared
those who qualified for compensation as a result of their
persecution during the war to those whose compensation bids were
rejected.
Survivors whose compensation bids were rejected were generally those
who had been caught up in the war but who spent little or no time in
a closed ghetto or a concentration camp and who survived with
minimal disability.
Cancer was diagnosed in 22 percent of those granted compensation and
16 percent of those denied it, according to the report in the
journal Cancer.
The differences were most striking for lung and colon cancers.
Survivors granted compensation had a 37 percent higher risk of lung
cancer and a 12 percent higher risk of colorectal cancer than those
denied compensation, after adjustments for age, gender and country
of origin.
“This study brings to light again that outside forces can cause
cancer,” said cancer epidemiologist Electra Paskett of The Ohio
State University in Columbus. “Stress really does get under your
skin to cause disease.”
“Many have not given this hypothesis its due justice,” she said in
an email. Paskett was not involved with the study but was one of the
authors of an accompanying editorial.
The study also found heightened cancer risk for survivors born in
countries occupied by Nazi Germany compared to survivors born
elsewhere.
Survivors born in Nazi-occupied countries had an 8 percent higher
risk of developing cancer than survivors born elsewhere, the study
found. Those born in occupied countries also had a 12 percent higher
risk of lung cancer and an 8 percent higher risk of colorectal
cancer.
Holocaust survivors experienced a myriad of potential risk factors
for cancer, including infectious disease, severe and prolonged
hunger, mental stress, physical abuse and overcrowding, lead author
Dr. Siegal Sadetzki of the Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Tel
Hashomer, Israel said in a phone interview.
Although the study cannot explain the reasons for heightened risk,
Sadetzki speculated about a possible explanation for the increase in
lung cancer among compensated holocaust survivors.
“I believe the risk for lung cancer is by a secondary, indirect
mechanism,” she said. “Due to the stress, maybe the holocaust
survivors smoked more and experienced lifestyle habits that are not
so good for you.”
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Previous studies have found that starvation might protect against
colon cancer. But prolonged starvation and deprivations from all
vitamins and nutrients, such as what holocaust survivors
experienced, might have had a different effect, Sadetzki said.
An alternative theory for the rise in colon cancer rates could be
that survivors compensated for their lack of food during the war by
overeating afterward, she said.
A previous study also found an overall increased risk of cancer, and
in particular colorectal and lung cancer, among Jewish holocaust
survivors. The prior study also reported an increased risk of breast
cancer among women survivors.
The new study, however, showed no increase in risk for breast or
gynecologic cancer among female survivors.
Nearly 95 percent of Hungarian Jewish women held in concentration
camps during the war stopped menstruating, another previous study
found.
Not menstruating appears to protect against breast cancer. The
longer women menstruate, the more likely they are to be diagnosed
with hormone-related cancers, like breast cancer, the authors write.
In their editorial, Paskett and her colleagues draw parallels
between the privations experienced by holocaust survivors and those
experienced by poor racial minority groups in the United States
today.
“Both groups had or have stressors of violence, lack of food,
housing insecurity, discrimination and loss of power,” Paskett said.
“Today we can think about those living in urban neighborhoods or
rural areas with crumbling housing, drug use and unemployment, or
low wages, contributing to increasing violence, lack of good food in
area food markets, discrimination and even environmental pollution
caused by large businesses.”
“We need people who are willing to go into these communities and
work with the people who live there to develop strategies and
solutions to be able to help themselves,” she said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2tQIhSi and http://bit.ly/2tQOdL5 Cancer,
online July 10, 2017.
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