Nutrition During Cancer Treatment: What Actually Matters

Evidence-based personalised nutrition to support the body during cancer treatment and recovery.

Cancer treatment changes appetite, taste, digestion, and energy. There is no single diet that suits everyone. This article walks through the principles that consistently hold up in the evidence and how to adapt them to how you feel on any given day.

Topics covered: managing nausea, protein needs during treatment, hydration, and the supplements worth considering versus those to avoid.

Nutrition is an important part of supportive cancer care and should be considered from the time of diagnosis and throughout treatment.

Early screening for risk is important. Current oncology nutrition guidelines emphasise early identification of nutritional risk, because cancer and its treatments can affect appetite, digestion, taste, swallowing, energy requirements and the ability to maintain muscle mass.

Rather than following a restrictive or anti-cancer diet, nutritional care should be individualised to the person's cancer type, treatment, symptoms, nutritional status, body composition and personal needs.

The focus is generally on maintaining adequate energy and protein intake, preserving muscle and physical function, supporting recovery and managing treatment-related symptoms that interfere with eating.

Where dietary intake is insufficient, nutritional counselling and, when appropriate, oral nutritional supplements or other forms of medical nutrition support may be used.

Nutrition should complement, not replace, evidence-based oncology treatment. Patients experiencing significant weight loss, poor intake, swallowing difficulties or other nutrition-related problems should be assessed by an appropriately qualified oncology dietitian or healthcare professional.