You think that personality and stress are risk factors for cancer? PLEASE THINK AGAIN!

Professor Anthony Pelosi just published an intriguing paper. Here is the abstract:

During the 1980s and 1990s, Hans J Eysenck conducted a programme of research into the causes, prevention and treatment of fatal diseases in collaboration with one of his protégés, Ronald Grossarth-Maticek. This led to what must be the most astonishing series of findings ever published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature with effect sizes that have never otherwise been encounterered in biomedical research. This article outlines just some of these reported findings and signposts readers to extremely serious scientific and ethical criticisms that were published almost three decades ago. Confidential internal documents that have become available as a result of litigation against tobacco companies provide additional insights into this work. It is suggested that this research programme has led to one of the worst scientific scandals of all time. A call is made for a long overdue formal inquiry.

The Guardian reported further details on this story sating that the work of one of the most famous and influential British psychologists of all time, Hans Eysenck, is under a cloud following an investigation by King’s College London, which has found 26 of his published papers “unsafe”.

In relation to so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), it is foremost this claim of Eysenck that is relevant:

It is argued that there is now suficient evidence to regard psychosocial variables, in
particular personality and stress, as important risk factors for cancer and coronary heart
disease (CHD), equal in importance to smoking, heredity, cholesterol level, blood pressure,
and other physical variables. Furthermore, it is now clear that both types of factors act
synergistically; that is, each by itself is relatively benign, but their effects multiply to produce
high levels of disease…

The claim (which Eysenck published many times over, for instance here) was picked up and promoted by many believers in SCAM. This might have been helped by Eysenck’s bizarre openness to all things paranormal. Today his belief of a link between personality/stress and cancer is deeply engrained in SCAM.

King’s College says the results and conclusions of the papers “were not considered scientifically rigorous” by its committee of inquiry. Prof Sir Robert Lechler, the provost at King’s, has contacted the editors of the 11 journals where the papers appeared, recommending they should be retracted.

Prof Anthony Pelosi, consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital, Glasgow, whose own investigation prompted the inquiry by King’s, said their work “led to what must be the most astonishing series of findings ever published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, with effect sizes that have never otherwise been encountered in biomedical research”.

Among more than 3,000 people in the studies, Eysenck and his colleague claimed people with a “cancer-prone” personality were 121 times more likely to die of the disease than those without. Cancer-prone personalities were described as generally passive in the face of stress from outside.

Eysenck and Grossarth-Maticek apparently even had a cure for cancer. In one study, they gave 600 “cancer-prone” individuals a leaflet on how to be more “autonomous” and take control of their destiny. It contained such advice as: “Your aim should always be to produce conditions which make it possible for you to lead a happy and contented life.” It appeared to deliver miracles. Over 13 years, the 600 people randomly assigned to bibliotherapy, as it was called, had all-cause mortality of 32%, compared with 82% of 600 people not fortunate enough to receive a leaflet.

“I honestly believe, having read it so carefully and tried to find alternative interpretations, that this is fraudulent work,” said Pelosi, who is concerned Eysenck’s ideas still have a following. “His acolytes always bragged he was the most cited psychologist of all time… In the social sciences citation index, he was number three. Number two was Freud. Number one was Karl Marx. He was hugely prolific, widely cited and very influential… Many fringe medical practitioners hold the same conviction.”