The Center for Oncology Education & Research at Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences, in conjunction with Studies in Integrative Health Sciences, recently presented a program titled “Stress, Inflammation, Cancer and Chronic Disease. What’s the Connection?” by Elissa Epel, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. The lecture was open to the public. Epel also presented a student program titled “Survive & Thrive.”

Epel is a health psychology researcher who investigates the depths and intricacies of the mind-body connection. In particular, she has studied how processes related to psychological stress and meditation-based interventions affect cellular-based measures of aging, as well as eating and metabolism. Epel has studied mechanisms of how stress affects eating behavior and metabolism as well. She has been particularly interested in the automaticity of eating, and how intertwined eating is with our emotional life, and how it can become compulsive.

Epel earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University and her doctorate in health psychology from Yale University. Her research publications may be found at www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame%5Flab/.

Sponsors of the lecture included Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Lectures in
Mindfulness and Integrative Medicine; Baylor All Saints Medical Center, Fort Worth; the Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders; mindful; Scientific American; and the Society for Integrative Oncology.