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What to eat when off treatment and living with involuntary weight loss and cancer: a systematic search and narrative review

What to eat when off treatment and living with involuntary weight loss and cancer: a systematic search and narrative review
What to eat when off treatment and living with involuntary weight loss and cancer: a systematic search and narrative review
Purpose: the aim of this study was to report a systematic search and narrative review of the evidence base that can inform dietary advice for patients off treatment living with cancer cachexia syndrome (CCS).

Methods: searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL databases for publications about diet and cancer patients off treatment with symptoms of CCS. The following limits were applied: English language, from September 1998 to September 2008 and adults. In addition, a hand search included the reference lists of papers identified. Seven hundred and eighteen abstracts were assessed against inclusion/exclusion criteria and 88 were selected for full text independent examination by two researchers. Information from 48 papers was extracted, quality assessed, thematically analyzed and presented as a narrative synthesis.

Results: two dominant perspectives emerged on what should be eaten by weight-losing cancer patients. The majority of authors advocated a nutrient-dense diet, facilitated by nutritional counselling. The alternative approach was to advise the patient to ‘eat what they want’. There is little robust evidence to justify either approach as able to deliver on the range of physical and psychosocial objectives that they aim to achieve.

Conclusion: new model for the delivery of nutritional care may benefit cancer patients (off treatment) living with weight loss. The proposed model integrates the two identified perspectives to facilitate optimal food intake taking into account the patient's (1) disease symptoms and treatment side effects (2) emotional adaptation to illness and (3) social circumstances. Research is needed to establish which of these obstacles to eating can be changed for which patient groups to improve patient outcomes
0941-4355
1-17
Hopkinson, Jane B.
c656f8e9-7962-4bdc-87ea-e26e12ff1d24
Okamoto, Ikumi
fc9b4fed-0c78-4925-9e6f-2bfa7c3d48bc
Addington-Hall, Julia M.
87560cc4-7562-4f9b-b908-81f3b603fdd8
Hopkinson, Jane B.
c656f8e9-7962-4bdc-87ea-e26e12ff1d24
Okamoto, Ikumi
fc9b4fed-0c78-4925-9e6f-2bfa7c3d48bc
Addington-Hall, Julia M.
87560cc4-7562-4f9b-b908-81f3b603fdd8

Hopkinson, Jane B., Okamoto, Ikumi and Addington-Hall, Julia M. (2011) What to eat when off treatment and living with involuntary weight loss and cancer: a systematic search and narrative review. Supportive Care in Cancer, 19 (1), 1-17. (doi:10.1007/s00520-010-0964-0).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Purpose: the aim of this study was to report a systematic search and narrative review of the evidence base that can inform dietary advice for patients off treatment living with cancer cachexia syndrome (CCS).

Methods: searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL databases for publications about diet and cancer patients off treatment with symptoms of CCS. The following limits were applied: English language, from September 1998 to September 2008 and adults. In addition, a hand search included the reference lists of papers identified. Seven hundred and eighteen abstracts were assessed against inclusion/exclusion criteria and 88 were selected for full text independent examination by two researchers. Information from 48 papers was extracted, quality assessed, thematically analyzed and presented as a narrative synthesis.

Results: two dominant perspectives emerged on what should be eaten by weight-losing cancer patients. The majority of authors advocated a nutrient-dense diet, facilitated by nutritional counselling. The alternative approach was to advise the patient to ‘eat what they want’. There is little robust evidence to justify either approach as able to deliver on the range of physical and psychosocial objectives that they aim to achieve.

Conclusion: new model for the delivery of nutritional care may benefit cancer patients (off treatment) living with weight loss. The proposed model integrates the two identified perspectives to facilitate optimal food intake taking into account the patient's (1) disease symptoms and treatment side effects (2) emotional adaptation to illness and (3) social circumstances. Research is needed to establish which of these obstacles to eating can be changed for which patient groups to improve patient outcomes

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Published date: January 2011

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 180481
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/180481
ISSN: 0941-4355
PURE UUID: b8daa935-55a8-4a11-8b9f-d4c61f4e0700

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Date deposited: 11 Apr 2011 13:15
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:52

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Contributors

Author: Jane B. Hopkinson
Author: Ikumi Okamoto

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