It's amazing and alarming how stressful emotions may harm your health in so many ways, for example, keeping cancer cells alive. A recent study demonstrates how treating those emotions with counseling may benefit cervical cancer patients for the short-term, particularly at the cellular level.

During the course of the study, 31 cervical cancer patients were divided into two groups. Both received standard medical care, but one group also had six counseling sessions by telephone that evaluated their current quality of life, addressed better management of stressful emotions and discussed their interpersonal relationships and sexual concerns.

The "proof in the pudding" came when researchers examined the DNA in blood samples drawn from both groups at the beginning of the study and after four months for the length of their telomeres, repetitive DNA material that protects the ends of chromosomes from deteriorating.

Past research we've cited in this space has shown how exercise slows down the shortening of telomeres and stress-related aging. Although scientists wouldn't try to quantify it, cervical cancer patients in the counseling group had longer telomeres.

Or, simply, "The stress didn't change. Their response to it did," lead researcher Dr. Edward Nelson, chief of hematology and oncology at the University of California, Irvine, told WebMD. FYI, counseling may also work as well as an antidepressant too.

American Association for Cancer Research April 2, 2011

healthfinder.gov April 2, 2011

WebMD April 2, 2011