Stress and Cancer

Dr. Sonia Lupien, Director of the Centre for Studies on Human Stress at the University of Montreal, delivered an informative and uplifting talk on the stress response and its causes at the recent 2019 Bay Area NET Patient Education Conference, supported by a Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation education sponsorship.

As the keynote speaker, Dr. Lupien used her talk to both destroy stress myths and detail stress definitions. She drew from her own personal experience as a cancer patient to inspire the audience to overcome stress with deep breathing, movement, and laughter. Also inspired by her own family’s response to her cancer diagnosis, Dr. Lupien scientifically studied how families can be affected by a cancer diagnosis. Her findings were overwhelmingly positive, identifying that families can be surprisingly resilient when facing a cancer diagnosis.

As a resource, Dr. Lupien created the online program, stressinc.net, to help individuals to deconstruct and reconstruct life stressors. The program, available in English and French, takes an hour and a half to work through and costs approximately $10 USD.

To view other NET experts like Dr. Eric Nakakura (UCSF), Dr. Pam Kunz (Stanford), Dr. Tom O’Dorisio (University of Iowa), Dr. Emily Bergsland (UCSF), and others visit the conference album.