A new research suggests that cancer could be caused by stress. Scientists have found that taking stress on an everyday basis could be a cause for the growth of tumors.

Any form of emotional or physical trauma can behave as a ‘pathway’ between cancerous mutations resulting in a fatal combination.

The findings of this research was published is published in ‘Nature’. Scientists say that they found that the conditions which trigger the disease can be affected by our emotional environment including everyday work and family stress.

‘A lot of different conditions can trigger stress signaling - physical stress, emotional stress, infections, inflammation – all these things. Reducing stress or avoiding stress conditions is always good advice,’ said Professor Tian Xu, a geneticist at Yale University, who also led the study.

Scientists believed, until now, that for tumors to grow in a single cell order more than one cancer-causing mutation was needed.

However, Prof Xu and his colleagues at the Yale University discovered that mutations can enhance cancer growth even when they are situated in different cells. This happens because the ‘pathways’ between them are opened up due to stress.