To starve cancer cells to death, you can’t eat too much nutritious food? Experts: These situations will cause your body to collapse

Many people regard having cancer as a death sentence, so they face it with a negative mentality of "try everything possible", or believe online rumors such as "cancer cells need to be starved to death, so they can't eat too nutritious food?" or even refuse to accept regular chemotherapy and radiotherapy, just because they believe "chemotherapy and radiotherapy will destroy immunity?" So they dare not accept treatment. As a result, the cancer cells soon spread out of control, and it ends in regret!

To starve cancer cells to death, you can’t eat too much nutritious food? Cancer experts crack

Among these cancer myths, which concepts need to be clarified? The misfortune of cancer is not entirely that it is incurable, but that there are too many regrets that "it could have been cured, but was just a little bit short of being cured"! Ji Kuanghua, an oncologist with both a radiotherapy specialist license and a chemotherapy specialist license, wrote in his new book "You Can Cure Your Own Cancer" that "Cancer cells need to be starved to death. They cannot be fed too nutritiously." This concept has been widely circulated among patients and on the Internet, and some patients often ask similar questions in outpatient clinics.

Imagine that cancer cells in the body are like gangsters who rob people everywhere. To deal with such gangsters, we should strengthen the police system to catch these bad guys. No one would want to reduce everyone's salary to prevent the gangsters from stealing things, right? Restricting the nutritional intake of cancer patients is like not paying the police and the public, hoping that cancer will starve to death due to lack of money (and nutrition). In the end, the cancer cells are not starved to death, but the normal cells are starved first. Therefore, the correct idea is that cancer patients should supplement their nutrition more.

Malnutrition and loss of muscle mass in cancer patients reduce survival rates

In fact, nutritional care for cancer patients has become a hot topic in recent years. According to research by the European Partnership for Action Against Cancer (EPAAC), cancer patients often suffer from malnutrition and loss of muscle mass, which can significantly reduce the survival rate of cancer patients. Muscle protein wasting is a hallmark of cancer cachexia, which severely affects quality of life and negatively impacts patients' ability to tolerate treatment and physical function.

Many people regard cancer as a death sentence, so they face it with a negative attitude of "try everything possible", or believe the rumors on the Internet that "cancer cells need to be starved to death, so they can't eat too much nutritious food?"

(Photo provided by Times Culture Publishing)

Cancer patients may have inadequate nutritional intake and continued weight loss may have serious consequences

Additionally, in cancer patients, if inadequate nutritional intake is observed and weight loss continues to occur, it can lead to serious consequences. They may be caused by decreased appetite during treatment leading to inadequate food intake, reduced physical activity, and deranged metabolism. Impaired physical function caused by weight loss and loss of muscle mass can lead to a poor prognosis, which can make it more difficult to fight cancer, lead to reduced effectiveness or interruption of scheduled treatment, and reduce quality of life.

Head and neck cancer patients who receive radiotherapy may suffer from cancer recurrence if they do not receive nutritional intervention

In particular, when head and neck cancer patients receive radiotherapy, due to inflammation, breakage and pain of the oral mucosa, the average weight of the patients will decrease by 3% to 5% due to the treatment. If they are unwilling to accept active nutritional intervention (such as nasogastric feeding), the reduced immunity caused by malnutrition will easily lead to pneumonia and even recurrence of cancer, leading to treatment failure and other vicious cycles that often occur again and again. It is by no means possible to prevent weight loss by supplementing only a single nutrient.

For cancer patients, basic calories are still the most important. The current consensus in the medical community is that cancer patients should not only not restrict nutrition, but should also actively monitor their nutritional status, supplement nutrition at any time, and prevent the occurrence of malnutrition to ensure that treatment can be completed smoothly and maintain the patient's quality of life. It is not impossible to specifically strengthen certain single nutritional supplement elements.

When head and neck cancer patients receive radiotherapy, their average weight will decrease by 3% to 5% due to inflammation, breakage and pain of the oral mucosa. If they are unwilling to accept active nutritional intervention (such as nasogastric feeding), the reduced immunity caused by malnutrition will easily lead to pneumonia and even cancer recurrence.

The best cancer prevention and health strategy: Eat a balanced diet and avoid processed foods as much as possible

Looking back, there is currently no evidence related to clinical results regarding the theory that nutrients may "feed tumors". Magnifying the benefits or disadvantages of a single nutrient is like "missing the forest for the trees". For example, glucose is particularly necessary for cancer cells, but don't forget that immune T cells that can kill cancer cells need more energy supply from glucose.

Therefore, such superficial reasons should not be used to reject glucose or even stop nutritional supplements for cancer patients. Regarding the impact of diet and nutrition on the causes of cancer, as well as the foods that are suitable to eat during cancer treatment, we emphasize that a balanced diet, avoiding processed foods as much as possible, and regular exercise are the best cancer prevention and health-preserving strategies.