Poor nutritional status and anxiety contributed to more severe side effects during treatment for gastrointestinal cancer. In addition, calorie intake, low hemoglobin, and depression slowed physical recovery.
Chinese researchers measured food intake, blood albumen and hemoglobin, and body mass index to determine nutritional status. They used standardized tests for depression and anxiety to determine psychological impact on 182 patients being treated for gastrointestinal cancers in four hospitals in China.
Poor protein intake more than tripled the risk of side effects during treatment while anxiety increased side effects by about 50%.
Depression, calorie intake, and low hemoglobin doubled the time it took to recover physical performance.
J. Tian and colleagues at Fujian Medical University in China concluded,
Both poor nutrition status and psychological status are independent risk factors for severe side effects of cancer treatment, and have impact on the recovery of physical performance status in patients after treatment.
SOURCE: Tian et al, World Journal of Gastroenterology, Volume 13, Number 30, pages 4136-4140, August 2007.
Leave a Reply
Your comments are welcome. However, specific medical advice will not be provided, and we urge you to consult with a qualified physician for diagnosis and for answers to your personal questions. FightCRC is not responsible for the medical accuracy of any comments left by persons other than FightCRC staff members. FightCRC staff members monitor comments and may respond publicly where appropriate.
Please note that we automatically publish the name that you enter next to your post. Also note that our pages are automatically indexed by Google and other search engines, and your name may therefore appear in search results on those sites. So if you wish to remain anonymous please use a different name or enter 'Anon' as the name.
We regret that we are unable to privately answer questions left as comments. So please do not include your phone number, email or mailing address in the body of your comment. For the best personal and direct response to your colorectal cancer treatment questions, please call our Answer Line at 1-877-4CRC-111 (1-877-427-2111).