5 ms·

I was recently shocked and practically offended to read guidelines on what to eat while undergoing chemo[1]. It was a high-sugar diet, basically (milkshakes wer

• jstsch 10y ago
  Many people hospitalized in any way, including when undergoing chemotherapy, don't eat enough. Loss of appetite. That's why this guideline document gives hints to increase kcal uptake.
  • tluyben2 10y ago
    Hospitals, no matter what they make of them, are not very nice because of their function. You are there for a reason. That's why, at least in NL/ES (luckily haven't been anywhere else) they try to get you out as fast as possible. Even unable to hardly walk because of the surgery I was out in 24 hours and that really helped recovery. In the 80s when they kept you 2 weeks even after trivial surgery it took far longer to recover (and I was younger so it should've been faster for multiple reasons).
• ac2u 10y ago
  As interesting as the article is, it's way too early to have feelings as strong as being "practically offended" towards literature advising such a diet. It's perhaps better to tell patients to "eat balanced and enjoy yourself with a treat from time to time like anyone else" and stamp some medical authority behind it rather than have them obsess over diet to the point where they become hooked by all the predators selling fad diet cures.
  • bsmith 10y ago
    I'd argue that the body of research supporting the `sugar == detriment` hypothesis is mounting. This is merely another in a series of dominoes that is (potentially) falling in that direction. I'd recommend the blog (eatingacademy.com) of Dr. Peter Attia, founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative, for more.
• Spooky23 10y ago
  They recommend that because in many cases you can't hold down solid food for periods of time. Good luck eating your veg and protein when you immediately vomit it back up.
  • danieltillett 10y ago
    Not only that but it is very easy to create a very strong food aversion to whatever you have recently eaten. Your brain connects the very bad nausea that results from the chemo with whatever you last ate. This effect can be so strong that people can never eat that food ever again.
    • tluyben2 10y ago
      Yes, that is important to note! All the 'experience' including the nausea, but also the smells of the hospital and the changes in that smell get connected to food you eat at that time. I did not touch my favorite foods during that because of that reason. The stuff I did eat I couldn't stomach for many months after (like croissants); luckily I went to work in China for months after so I got completely different food than in Europe which gave me the time for my body to unstress from the ordeal.
    • tominous 10y ago
      One trick is to choose a scapegoat food that you don't care too much about, preferably something novel (e.g. strong liquorice might work). This has been shown to reduce the risk of aversion to normal food. [1] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/3677112/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/3677112/
      • ac2u 10y ago
        That's brilliant if so, great how such a simple technique could potentially have a solid, measurable, quality of life improvement.
    • agumonkey 10y ago
      Interesting. I ate a can of tuna fish salad a while back. They changed something in the recipe, something made me feel sick in weird and deep ways. For a year, the sight of a similar enough can would trigger nausea back, with cold sweat fear.
• specialist 10y ago
  Well. Change is hard, structure of scientific revolutions and all that. Back when I had chemo, nutrition wasn't even discussed. I got strange looks just by asking about it.
• sgift 10y ago
  When all you eat tastes like lead because of chemo therapy but you know that you have to eat something then you are really happy if it is over very fast. And drinking a milk shake is certainly fast.
• pygy_ 10y ago
  Depending on the tumor, feeding it well may increase its sensitivity to chemotherapy. On the other hand, I've read recently that fasting improved chemo tolerance because it puts healthy cells at rest while the cancerous ones are oblivious to the reduced calories intake... Not sure if it is universal. Such an early study was likely targeted a specific kind of cancer.
  • digi_owl 10y ago
    Well the article tried to stress that what they wrote about didn't apply to all cancers. Also, seem to me the basic complication of dealing with cancers is that anything that will kill a cancer cell is likely to also kill healthy cells. So inversely, whatever you do to keep the patient alive is likely to also exasperate the cancer problem.
  • mmargerum 10y ago
    There's a therapy called IPT Insulin Potentiation Therapy which allows for much lower doses of chemotherapy
• bottled_poe 10y ago
  Have you experienced chemotherapy? Are you a doctor? Please lay down your credentials.
• redtuesday 10y ago
  Just to be sure no one misunderstands: these milkshakes are not the same that one would drink at McDonalds etc. They are like the shakes overweight people drink to lose weight before surgery, only that they are for gaining weight. These shakes have many different vitamins, minerals etc. the body needs and have many calories (1.5-2.0 kcal/ml), and yes that means sugar. These shakes are also low on lactase because depending on the chemo patients can become intollerant to lactase (either through the chemo or antibiotics that are given). They are also low on fibre so its easier to digest.
• zodiac 10y ago
  Surely the doctors who wrote this know more than you do and have considered this possibility? That doesn't mean they're automatically right, but your first reaction should be "what studies was this advice based on?" rather than "this advice is clearly harmful, I'm offended by it"