Cancer Treatment and Nutritional Deficiencies

Abstract

Increasing cancer incidence and improved survival rates have seen the number of cancer survivors increase exponentially throughout the last few decades. As a consequence of this, cancer survivors may experience a number of permanent side effects from their cancer or the treatment. Traditionally, patient follow-up has been undertaken by oncological specialists with a major focus on possible cancer reoccurrence however, this fails to identify or adequately address many patients concerns regarding post-cancer treatment. For a majority of patients, nutrition during treatment and post-cancer diagnosis and treatment is an area they can control and change for their own health and well-being. The following chapter addresses nutrient deficiencies associated with certain cancers, chemotherapy agents, radiation and surgical procedures. Potential treatment protocols for different oncological stages post diagnosis are explored and conditions that may induce nutrient deficiencies and how they can be treated or decreased are explained.Keywords: chemotherapy, radiation, cancer survivorship, nutrient deficiencies, wellbeing . IntroductionIncreasing cancer incidence and improved survival rates have seen the number of cancer survivor s increase exponentially throughout the last few decades. As a consequence of this, cancer survivors may experience a number of permanent side effects from their cancer or the treatment [ ]. Traditionally, patient follow-up has been undertaken by oncological specialists © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. with a major focus on possible cancer reoccurrence however, this fails to identify or adequately address many patients concerns regarding post-cancer treatment. For a majority of patients, nutrition during treatment and post-cancer diagnosis and treatment is an area they can control and change for their own health and well-being. However, Zhang[ ] published a study indicating that cancer survivors are usually motivated to improve their health but were found to have suboptimal diets. She examined the dietary intake of cancer survivors and individuals who had never had cancer. The researcher estimated the quality of the diets using the Health Eating Index, which is based on the United States government s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The scores ranged from to , with indicating no adherence to which is total adherence. After adjusting for age, sex and ethnicity, Zhang found that the group who had not had cancer had an average index of . and the cancer survivors on average indexed . . It was found that cancer survivors in general from this population ate less fibre, more empty calories and more refined sugars and fats. In addition, they examined patients who had different types of cancer and found that those who had breast cancer had th...

Cost-Effectiveness of Nutrient Supplementation in Cancer Survivors

“…The American Cancer Society recommends that DS should not exceed 100% of recommended daily values in cancer patients, while outside of deficiency, the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism recommends against DS [ 49 , 50 ]. However, the nutrition status of cancer patients is oftentimes insufficient due to both their disease state and treatment [ 51 , 52 , 53 ].…”

Quantitative determination of selenium in the most common food items sold in Egypt

“…In addition, Se may slow advancement of HIV disease by decreasing oxidative stress and inhibits viral cytotoxic effects [6]. There are at least 30 Se dependent proteins that act as a cofactor in order to convert thyroxine (T4) to bioactive (T3) including glutathione peroxidase and iodothyronine deiodinases enzymes [7].…”