Associations between reduced telomere length, depressed mood, anhedonia, and irritability in prostate cancer patients: Further evidence for the presence of "male depression"?

Extract:
Introduction:
The link between chronic stress and depression has been established
for some time. Major physical illness represents such a chronic
stressor, and people who suffer from such illnesses have been shown
to be at an increased risk of developing depression.Perhaps, one of
the most feared of all illnesses is cancer. Among Australian men, the
most common form of cancer is prostate cancer (PCa). Meta‐analytic
data indicate that PCa patients suffer depression at a prevalence of
18.44% following treatment, several times higher than the 3% to 4%
prevalence in men of similar ages from the general population.
Depression in PCa patients adds to their overall disease burden and
may also impede their recovery from PCa. Although most of the endpoints
that have been measured in studies of depression in these men
have been associated with medical and surgical costs, plus mortality,
the links with the wider biological consequences of this elevated
depression are also of value when formulating a comprehensive model
of PCa depression.