Health

Massages Can Be Used To Treat Cancer

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Surgery, chemo and radiation for cancer are designed to treat the physical illness. But in medicine, there's also a psychological component. That's where stress management comes in, and major medical centers -- like Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center -- are using things like massage to help their patients.

Jenna Glazer's having a massage. It may look like a luxury massage you'd get at a Beverly Hills spa. But Jenna's not on vacation. In fact, she has a full time job -- fighting breast cancer.

"I was diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer, and then after I had surgery, it turned out that I actually had stage 3 breast cancer," says Jenna.

Last year she had mastectomies on both breasts, followed by chemo and radiation. She also considers massage as part of her therapy.

She says that, "In order to really deal with some of the emotional side effects of chemo, the side effects of treatment, it really seemed like something that would help me to relax."

"Our patients typically come in with a number of complaints, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, pain, and depression, and massage is very effective in reducing those complaints -- as much as 50% immediately after a session," says Wendy Miner, a massage therapist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Integrative Medicine center.

Some research shows massage by trained therapists may even help in the healing process.

"It does do a lot to lower respiratory rate, blood pressure. It also does a lot to decrease the different stress hormones, and to increase natural killer cells and lymphocytes, which help with the immune system," according to Miner.

While Jenna knows massage won't cure her cancer, she says it helps give her a fighting chance.

"It's given me a calm place, an hour during the day where I dont' think about cancer, where I focus on relaxation, where I focus on healing."

But it's important to note that this isn't a massage like you'd get in a gym or spa. It takes a trained therapist to work with cancer patients. So massage therapy like this should be done by someone with a lot of experience.

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