Good Nutrition Can Help Patients Fight Cancer

Guest writer

Katrina Evans is a recent college graduate and aspiring writer especially interested in health and wellness. She wants to make a difference in people’s lives because she sees how cancer has devastated so many people in this world. Katrina also likes running, reading and listening to cool podcasts.


Interested in leading a more active healthier you? Eating healthy plays a fundamental role in maintaining a strong immune system to naturally ward off cancer. A healthier lifestyle through diet and exercise is key to promote growth, replace tissue and keep everything from organs to cells healthy.

Good nutrition becomes even more essential for people who have already been diagnosed with cancer. What you eat and don’t have a powerful effect on your overall performance. It is important for cancer patients to maintain healthy eating habits before, during and after cancer treatments. Besides the cancer itself, treatments can leave it’s mark and wear out the body where patients often feel fatigue or nausea. So it is more important than ever to get enough essential nutrients into the body to not only help cancer treatments be more effective, but to raise your natural defenses for recovery.

It is not always easy to maintain a healthy diet when battling cancer or going through cancer treatments. Since cancer diagnosis, especially aggressive ones like, pancreatic or mesothelioma cancer, call for more intense treatments, patients may experience side effects that occur which diminish a person's ability to maintain a healthy diet. Some cancer patients will experience problems such as mouth sores, trouble swallowing, dry mouth, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea as a direct result of the cancer itself or a treatment used to eradicate cancer cells from their body. If a patient does not get proper nutrition under these circumstances, it can lead to malnutrition.

As many as 35 percent of cancer cases can be connected to poor nutrition according to the National Cancer Institute. So when putting together a nutritional guideline that works for you, do your homework. Find out specifics like, what is mesothelioma, thyroid cancer, or the cause of kidney cancer and what foods can have a protective effect against them, how can green tea help prevent heart disease, or is garlic really considered a “super food?”

So, what are some essential foods that can keep cancer at bay? It’s all about the greens baby! Scientists believe that the combination of foods in a predominantly plant-based diet can make all the difference. There is evidence that minerals, vitamins, and phytochemicals in plant foods boost anti-cancer effects in the body. Foods rich in protein and other nutrients needed to maintain a healthy body can restore energy and give your immune system the boost it needs which can include lean meats such as chicken or fish, soups, eggs, yogurt, whole milk, fruit smoothies, beans, nuts and even ice cream, yum!


Katrina Evans is a recent college graduate and aspiring writer especially interested in health and wellness. She wants to make a difference in people’s lives because she sees how cancer has devastated so many people in this world. Katrina also likes running, reading and listening to cool podcasts.