{"title":"The Importance of Nutrition in Cancer Care: A Narrative Review.","authors":"Camilla Horn Soares, Amanda Guterres Beuren, Heloisa Jacques Friedrich, Carolina Pagnoncelli Gabrielli, Giovanna Potrick Stefani, Thais Steemburgo","doi":"10.1007/s13668-024-00578-0","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose of review: </strong>Cancer, a complex disease affecting millions globally, presents considerable challenges for both patients and health care providers. Within the broad spectrum of cancer care, nutrition plays a key role in supporting patients throughout their journey. This narrative review examines the role of nutrition in cancer care, exploring its impact on treatment outcomes, nutritional status, current dietary recommendations, physical activity, palliative care, and finally, as a nutritional encouragement for cancer survivors.</p><p><strong>Recent findings: </strong>Evidence indicates that cancer and anticancer treatments frequently cause malnutrition and loss of muscle mass, which can exacerbate symptoms, impair immune function, and hamper recovery. Therefore, adequate nutritional support is crucial for maintaining strength, controlling symptoms, and optimizing treatment tolerance in patients with cancer. Several factors influence nutritional needs and dietary recommendations, including cancer type, treatment, and individual patient characteristics. Nutritional care aims not only to ensure sufficient energy and protein intake, but also to manage specific symptoms such as dysgeusia, nausea, and dysphagia. Registered dietitians play a crucial role in providing personalized nutritional guidance, monitoring nutritional status, and implementing interventions to address emerging challenges in cancer care. Furthermore, recent research has underscored the benefits of dietary interventions in cancer treatment. From targeted nutritional supplements to more invasive nutritional support, interest in how nutrition can affect cancer risk and treatment outcomes is increasing. Overall, this review highlights the critical role of nutritional care in comprehensive cancer treatment. By recognizing and meeting dietary demands throughout the entire cancer journey, health care professionals can improve patients' well-being, response to treatment, and long-term prognosis.</p>","PeriodicalId":10844,"journal":{"name":"Current Nutrition Reports","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Nutrition Reports","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-024-00578-0","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/9/15 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"NUTRITION & DIETETICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose of review: Cancer, a complex disease affecting millions globally, presents considerable challenges for both patients and health care providers. Within the broad spectrum of cancer care, nutrition plays a key role in supporting patients throughout their journey. This narrative review examines the role of nutrition in cancer care, exploring its impact on treatment outcomes, nutritional status, current dietary recommendations, physical activity, palliative care, and finally, as a nutritional encouragement for cancer survivors.
Recent findings: Evidence indicates that cancer and anticancer treatments frequently cause malnutrition and loss of muscle mass, which can exacerbate symptoms, impair immune function, and hamper recovery. Therefore, adequate nutritional support is crucial for maintaining strength, controlling symptoms, and optimizing treatment tolerance in patients with cancer. Several factors influence nutritional needs and dietary recommendations, including cancer type, treatment, and individual patient characteristics. Nutritional care aims not only to ensure sufficient energy and protein intake, but also to manage specific symptoms such as dysgeusia, nausea, and dysphagia. Registered dietitians play a crucial role in providing personalized nutritional guidance, monitoring nutritional status, and implementing interventions to address emerging challenges in cancer care. Furthermore, recent research has underscored the benefits of dietary interventions in cancer treatment. From targeted nutritional supplements to more invasive nutritional support, interest in how nutrition can affect cancer risk and treatment outcomes is increasing. Overall, this review highlights the critical role of nutritional care in comprehensive cancer treatment. By recognizing and meeting dietary demands throughout the entire cancer journey, health care professionals can improve patients' well-being, response to treatment, and long-term prognosis.
期刊介绍:
This journal aims to provide comprehensive review articles that emphasize significant developments in nutrition research emerging in recent publications. By presenting clear, insightful, balanced contributions by international experts, the journal intends to discuss the influence of nutrition on major health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and obesity, as well as the impact of nutrition on genetics, metabolic function, and public health. We accomplish this aim by appointing international authorities to serve as Section Editors in key subject areas across the field. Section Editors select topics for which leading experts contribute comprehensive review articles that emphasize new developments and recently published papers of major importance, highlighted by annotated reference lists. We also provide commentaries from well-known figures in the field, and an Editorial Board of more than 25 internationally diverse members reviews the annual table of contents, suggests topics of special importance to their country/region, and ensures that topics and current and include emerging research.