Medical Minute: Connection Between Mental Health And Aggressiveness Of Prostate Cancer

There’s evidence that there may be a connection between mental health and the aggressiveness of prostate cancer. Inflammation is a factor in both conditions, and people who don’t get mental health treatment, may not be getting good treatment for their cancer either.

They may not even get regular cancer screenings. So investigators are scouring the massive databases at the Department of Veterans Affairs looking for veterans with mental health illness, prostate cancer or both to compare conditions and outcomes. They anticipate that tons of insight will come out of the largest dataset ever of veterans with one or both these conditions. An early question is how being diagnosed with a mental health illness first impacts cancer treatment.

The Medical Minute airs at 8:18 a.m., 1:20 p.m. and 5:18 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday on  17 GPB radio stations across Georgia. For more Medical Minute episodes, visit the Medical Minute 2020 SoundCloud page.