Psychological and Biological Outcomes in Breast Cancer Patients After Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention.

Distress can have serious effects on the human body and is known to contribute to various disorders, including cardiovascular diseases. In the case of breast cancer, patients often experience a build-up of stressful events throughout their journey with the disease, such as diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, survival, and dealing with side effects of anticancer therapy.

Many studies have shown that psychological stress is closely related to increased cortisol levels in the body. This stress may lead to epigenetic changes in telomere length, the action of telomerase, the function of T-leukocytes, and the response of pro-inflammatory cytokines, all of which play significant roles in the treatment of oncological patients.

Considering these factors, managing stress becomes crucial, as it can not only indirectly affect the disease's outcome but also impact survival. This scientific protocol aims to investigate the impact of a holistic stress management program on the telomere length of T-leukocytes in the peripheral blood of women diagnosed with breast cancer.

The stress management technique to be employed is the Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention, which will be administered only after completing all cancer treatments, except for hormonal therapy. The methods that will be followed include distributing self-referred questionnaires to assess stress and lifestyle and extracting genetic (DNA) material to study the telomere length of T-cells from peripheral blood and Total Oxidative Stress status.

By studying the impact of stress and its management on telomere length in breast cancer patients, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of how stress affects health outcomes and potentially provide insights into improving patient care.