Getting sufficient nutrition during your cancer experience can be a serious challenge. If you don’t get enough protein and nutrients, your body can’t heal properly and you risk losing muscle mass.  Malnutrition and the resulting loss of lean body mass in cancer patients is common and is referred to as cancer cachexia. A nutritionally compromised patient is less able to withstand the physical rigors of some cancer treatments and insufficient dietary protein hinders the body’s ability to heal itself after surgery.

Malnutrition can be caused by many factors, including lack of appetite, nausea, fatigue and pain.   Mouth sores resulting from chemotherapy or radiation treatment will make eating painful and difficult. Treatments often affect the sense of taste and smell. Mouth dryness from decreased saliva production can occur with radiation treatments to the head and neck, making it difficult to chew or swallow.  You may just not feel like eating.  

While limited weight loss in cancer patients is considered acceptable, with more pronounced weight loss you should seek your physician’s assistance. If you lose more than 4-5% of your weight in less than one month, you should talk to your doctor about seeing a nutritionist or dietician.

What you can do to stay nutritionally healthy:

• Eat small, frequent meals.

• Eat calorie dense food such as shakes, cream soups, puddings, cereals, cheese, fish, chicken and commercial protein supplements. Some protein supplements may be easier to digest than others.

• Have ready-to-eat snacks available.

• Avoid filling and gas-forming foods such as raw cauliflower, broccoli, onions, and green peppers.

• Avoid liquids with meals. Liquids tend to move food through and out of the stomach more quickly.  By reducing liquids during meals, the food you eat will spend more time in stomach being broken down, making it easier for the intestines to absorb.

• Eat slowly

Stomach Tube

If you cannot take nutrition orally, your doctor may suggest feeding through a stomach tube.  This procedure is referred to as a G-tube insertion or PEG tube insertion.  The tube may be inserted into the stomach, either by endoscopy (through the mouth and esophagus with local anesthetic or intravenous sedation) or through the skin surgically under general anesthesia if you have an obstruction.

If a feeding tube is recommended ask these questions of your medical team:

• How do I care for the skin around the tube?
• What are the signs to look for and symptoms of infection?
• What do I do if the tube is pulled out?
• What are the signs to look for and symptoms of tube blockage?
• What do I put in the tube and how do I do that?
• Can I make the tube less noticeable through clothing? How do I do that?
• What normal activities can I continue to do? What do I need to stop doing?

In certain situations, intravenous feeding may be recommended.   Consult with your physician regarding specific information in this case.

This page was last edited on 7/23/2008
Written by Rachael Myers Lowe, cancerpage.com
Clinical review by Sara Parkerson, RN, MSN, OCN,  and Jan Smith, RN, OCN