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Proper diet crucial for cancer patients
Proper diet crucial for cancer patients
Food supplements, diets using organic foods or megavitamins, herbal remedies, and the frequent use of powerful laxatives have all been touted as preventives or sure cures for cancer. Cancer patients are often the recipients of well-intentioned but inaccurate advice from relatives and friends advocating various nutritional plans that allegedly prevent cancer, alleviate pain, or destroy malignancies. “Learning to eat correctly and to follow a well-thought-out nutritional plan is as important to a patient’s cancer therapy as the radiation or chemotherapy treatments,” said Linda Jones, RN, instructor and clinician in the University of Rochester (NY) School of Nursing and an oncology nurse in the University’s Cancer Center. The Cancer Center’s nurses meet with patients and families to assess eating problems. “We ask patientsto identify the reasonsfor not eating and try to figure out what it means. We look for the source of the problem and then design a plan to help patients and families cope with it,” said Jones. Difficulties in eating properly may be due to treatment side effects, a problem caused by the course of the disease, or psychological factors. As a result, cancer patients may feel they don’t have control over their ability to eat. “In some families, when patients refuse to eat, home remedies or unconventional diets may be recommended in order to get them to eat or in an attempt to cure the cancer that won’t allow them to eat,” said Jones. “Nutrition articles, books, and magazines usually appeal to a patient’s sense of cure,” said Jones. “They are written with the tone that a certain diet, vitamin therapy, or nutritional plan is going to work.”
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Recent regimens advertised as preventives or cures for cancer include the use of megavitamins (such as large doses of Vitamin A or B15), laetrile, or diets of raw or organic foods. “These treatments can be costly, both financially and physically,” Jones pointed out. “Many of these diets call for the elimination of certain kinds of food in favor of another that can throw a diet off balance. “People often put themselves on a diet, and when we talk to patients about their eating problems or habits, it’s often difficult to verify where they got their information about a certain diet and what it involves. There are lots of variations on a normal diet, and we try to find out how patients deviate from the norm,” she said. Cancer Center nurses and physicians who counsel patients and families about proper nutrition during treatment have suggestions to encourage eating and a proper diet. “Breakfast is the most important meal patients can eat,” said Jones. “That’s the time when the appetite is usually the greatest. We may also suggest that patients eat smaller quantities of food at more frequent intervals.” Patients and families are also counseled that it‘s okay to have times when the patient doesn’t eat. “In some families, food may be equated with love, and when a patient doesn’t eat, it’s seen as a rejection of the family,” she said. “We try, through our counseling, to put the problem in perspective for family members, so they realize that a rejection of food is not a rejection of family but an indication of how ill the patient might feel. Patients and families are advised that there should be times during the day when the patient is free from being forced to eat.” Nutrition counseling sessions stress that the best diet includes a variety of foods.
AORN Journal, December 1981, V o l 3 4 , No 6
Food supplements, diets using organic foods or megavitamins, herbal remedies, and the frequent use of powerful laxatives have all been touted as preventives or sure cures for cancer. Cancer patients are often the recipients of well-intentioned but inaccurate advice from relatives and friends advocating various nutritional plans that allegedly prevent cancer, alleviate pain, or destroy malignancies. “Learning to eat correctly and to follow a well-thought-out nutritional plan is as important to a patient’s cancer therapy as the radiation or chemotherapy treatments,” said Linda Jones, RN, instructor and clinician in the University of Rochester (NY) School of Nursing and an oncology nurse in the University’s Cancer Center. The Cancer Center’s nurses meet with patients and families to assess eating problems. “We ask patientsto identify the reasonsfor not eating and try to figure out what it means. We look for the source of the problem and then design a plan to help patients and families cope with it,” said Jones. Difficulties in eating properly may be due to treatment side effects, a problem caused by the course of the disease, or psychological factors. As a result, cancer patients may feel they don’t have control over their ability to eat. “In some families, when patients refuse to eat, home remedies or unconventional diets may be recommended in order to get them to eat or in an attempt to cure the cancer that won’t allow them to eat,” said Jones. “Nutrition articles, books, and magazines usually appeal to a patient’s sense of cure,” said Jones. “They are written with the tone that a certain diet, vitamin therapy, or nutritional plan is going to work.”
1172
Recent regimens advertised as preventives or cures for cancer include the use of megavitamins (such as large doses of Vitamin A or B15), laetrile, or diets of raw or organic foods. “These treatments can be costly, both financially and physically,” Jones pointed out. “Many of these diets call for the elimination of certain kinds of food in favor of another that can throw a diet off balance. “People often put themselves on a diet, and when we talk to patients about their eating problems or habits, it’s often difficult to verify where they got their information about a certain diet and what it involves. There are lots of variations on a normal diet, and we try to find out how patients deviate from the norm,” she said. Cancer Center nurses and physicians who counsel patients and families about proper nutrition during treatment have suggestions to encourage eating and a proper diet. “Breakfast is the most important meal patients can eat,” said Jones. “That’s the time when the appetite is usually the greatest. We may also suggest that patients eat smaller quantities of food at more frequent intervals.” Patients and families are also counseled that it‘s okay to have times when the patient doesn’t eat. “In some families, food may be equated with love, and when a patient doesn’t eat, it’s seen as a rejection of the family,” she said. “We try, through our counseling, to put the problem in perspective for family members, so they realize that a rejection of food is not a rejection of family but an indication of how ill the patient might feel. Patients and families are advised that there should be times during the day when the patient is free from being forced to eat.” Nutrition counseling sessions stress that the best diet includes a variety of foods.
AORN Journal, December 1981, V o l 3 4 , No 6