Nutrition and Cancer
Jennifer Williams: Individuals undergoing cancer treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation often present with nausea, prolonged nausea or vomiting, a lot of them will have either diarrhea or constipation and more commonly you will see diarrhea in these patients. Weight loss is very common in patients with cancer. From anorexia related to the treatments or just the nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation that you see with the treatment.
Shahram Hormozi: Chemotherapy and radiation and basically cancer patients have a very high catabolic rate. They need to increase the caloric intake. With chemotherapy and radiation depending on where it is, you can have changes in your taste sensation. A lot of chemotherapy patients have a metallic taste in their mouth and can't tolerate lot of foods.
So, they do indeed present a dilemma, a lot of time they cannot tolerate meats and therefore their protein intake has to come from other sources and they might need supplemental augmentation of their caloric and protein intake.
Jennifer Williams: The nutritional goal is predominantly to maintain weight. So, if the current issue is weight loss, that they present with and our goal is to halt the rate of weight loss or at least slow down the rate of weight loss. And we do that with high calorie, high protein meals or meal replacements.
Shahram Hormozi: Adequate caloric intake and balanced nutrition with supplements as necessary and recommended. Because they may not find a food palatable enough to have enough intake and if they have a drink that has those needs in it and that might be better tolerated.
Jennifer Williams: Nutritional status definitely impacts ability to tolerate treatments. Patients who are malnourished are at increased risk for infection, so if they develop an infection that may halt or put a hold on different cancer treatment strategies. So, it's important to prevent malnutrition associated with cancer.
Shahram Hormozi: If they are coming in well nutrition and healthy and active then the problems that are associated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy and all the side effects and deleterious effects that it will have on their body will be better tolerated.
So, it's important that they are well nutrition to begin and you have to maintain that adequate nutrition throughout and they feel stronger, they feel better. Chemotherapy is associated with a great deal of weakness and loss of appetite, nausea and if you can get them those supplements, they are going to feel stronger and once they feel stronger, they have a better outlook and they can tolerate their sessions better.
Jennifer Williams: Based upon nutritional status and intake, patients maybe limited in their ability to care for themselves. So, as a disease progresses or as the nutritional status for the patient worsens, they may not be able to care for themselves as well, they may lose muscle mass and that will inhibit their ability to get up and do their activities of daily living, like meal preparation. So, they often need a caregiver to assist in their meal preparation and delivery.
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