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

The link between chronic stress and depression has been established for some time.¹ 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.² Perhaps, one of the most feared of all illnesses is cancer.³ Among Australian men, the most common form of cancer is prostate cancer (PCa).⁴ Meta-analytic data indicate that PCa patients suffer depression at a prevalence of 18.44% following treatment,⁵ several times higher than the 3% to 4% prevalence in men of similar ages from the general population.⁶ Depression in PCa patients adds to their overall disease burden and may also impede their recovery from PCa.⁷ 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,⁷ the links with the wider biological consequences of this elevated depression are also of value when formulating a comprehensive model of PCa depression.