Adequate and individualized nutritional intervention improves symptoms, reduces morbidity and mortality, and helps to obtain a more favorable final prognosis in oncological diseases. Multidisciplinary follow-up, with early nutritional intervention, is of greater importance in oncology, and it is a key factor for the successful treatment and recovery of these patients.
Cancer has a proven negative impact on the nutritional status of cancer patients. Thus, nutrition proves to be a central factor in oncology, influencing the development of the disease, the symptomatology inherent to the tumor and treatments, the response to therapies and recovery after treatment. Nutrition has, for all these reasons, a strong impact on the patient's quality of life and on the prognosis of the disease.
Most oncological diseases occur when a specialized cell fails to perform its function. However, neoplastic cells also show other changes. These cells will compete agressively to survive, using mutability and natural selection to obtain an advantage over “normal” cells.
Cellular metabolism is altered: proteolysis and lipolysis are accelerated, while muscle protein synthesis is depressed, and there are also changes in carbohydrate metabolism. In addition to these cellular metabolic alterations, there are the adverse effects of anticancer treatments. These have several toxic effects, which vaery according to the type of neoplasm and the treatment which is applied.
Together, these two factors will provoke changes in body composition and, often, in the weight of patients. In most cases, despite an increase in metabolism, there is no adaptation of the patient's diet, which leads to an increased risk of nutritional deterioration. Although malnutrition has always been the pattern associated with oncological disease, and which, even today, is the focus of much attention, it is increasingly common to observe a new metabolic pattern: obese cancer patients with loss of lean mass. This new standard is due to the worldwide increase in obesity verified in recent decades, which is described as a risk factor in the increase in the incidence and recurrence of cancer.
The nutritional support of cancer patients is, therefore, of great importance, and its main objective is the promotion and maintenance of a good nutritional status. In addition, it is also important that nutritional support helps minimize the side effects of anticancer treatments and increase and improve the quality of life and prognosis of these patients.
For all these reasons, and as part of a commitment to fight cancer and the morbidity and mortality associated with it, Joaquim Chaves Saúde offers a Diet and Oncology Nutrition consultation at the Clínica Cirúrgica de Carcavelos.
A nutritionist helps the patient make appropriate food choices and design a strategic diet to fight the disease in the short, medium and long term. On the other hand, nutritional monitoring has an absolutely central role in maintaining energy and quality of life, in the face of treatments, in physical recovery (in the case of prolonged therapy), or even in diet regulation, in order to allow a healthier and less exhausting life for the organism.