Maintaining an adequate diet is essential in any situation and at any age to maintain good health.
In patients suffering from cancer, either because of the disease itself or because of the treatments they receive (surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy), it is sometimes difficult to follow an adequate diet.
The diet to be followed by an oncology patient must be individualized for each person, since the treatments are different and so is the response to them. Therefore, the advice given by friends and relatives is not useful.
The diet that should be followed, whatever the type of tumor and treatment, should consist of a healthy, varied, balanced diet low in fats and soluble sugars. It should also be rich in antioxidants and proteins of vegetable origin. Mainly, you should always a personalized diet.
Tips for nutrition during cancer
Specialists in Nutrition and Dietetics offer patients suffering from cancer a series of tips that are aimed at getting them to:
- a sufficient diet in terms of calories and proteins
- adequate hydration
- to maintain an adequate weight. It is important to avoid weight loss. Weight loss of more than 5% of the usual weight can have a negative impact on the patient’s nutritional status.
- the treatment and its side effects are better tolerated.
Side effects of cancer treatment on nutrition
The main problem faced by an oncology patient is lack of appetite. This occurs even before the diagnosis of the disease is made. This lack of appetite is accentuated during treatment with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments can produce alterations in the taste of food and beverages. They can also cause the appearance of sores (aphthae and mucositis) in the mouth, which cause pain when swallowing.
Other side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy are constipation and diarrhea.
Diet and cancer: weight loss
Weight loss is one of the first symptoms that occur before a cancer diagnosis. This weight loss is accentuated during cancer treatment; be it surgery, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy.
Initially, before diagnosis, the main cause of weight loss is lack of appetite and, subsequently, the treatment to which the patient is subjected.
Tumors of the digestive system (esophagus, stomach, pancreas, colon and liver) are those that usually cause the most significant weight loss, both before diagnosis and after surgery or treatment with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy.
Diet and cancer: weight gain
In patients with breast cancer, weight gain is very common once chemotherapy treatment has been completed. Moreover, this increase is accentuated by subsequent hormone treatment. Weight gain is not advisable, on the contrary. There is no inconvenience in following an adequate hypocaloric diet under medical control after having suffered a cancer, whether it is breast cancer or any other type of cancer. Weight gain can have a negative impact on the prognosis of the disease.