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Radiation Oncology • Nutrition
What specific dietary changes do you recommend for patients undergoing H&N, CNS, or GI RT?
I've recently found out about your work on diet and cancer, and am greatly intrigued. I am a big believer in the power of nutrition and think we as doctors can do better than, by default, recommend Boost or Ensure (with its million teaspoons of sugar, btw!) for dys-/odynophagia. I'd appreciate any info on specific dietary changes you recommend to your patients undergoing site-specific RT.
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Community Practice
I would leave Boost and Ensure as the absolute last recommendation possible. This goes for Carnation Instant breakfast as well, which is mostly made up of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. These supplements are poor sources of nutrition for anyone, let alone cancer patients. As cachexia is a state...
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Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Academic Institution
For patients undergoing rectal radiotherapy, I would recommend avoiding large amounts of high roughage: nuts, popcorn, crunchy raw fruits and vegetables. This may help with frequency and urgency of stools, both during RT and (sometimes) long-term afterwards.
Bob Myerson