Abstract
The primary goal of palliative cancer care is typically to relieve suffering and improve quality of life. Most approaches to diet in this setting have focused only on eating as many calories as possible to avoid cachexia. However, as the concept of palliative care has evolved to include all aspects of cancer survivorship and not just end of life care, there is an increasing need to thoughtfully consider diet and nutrition approaches that can impact not only quality of life but overall health outcomes and perhaps even positively affect cancer recurrence and progression. In this regard, there has been a recent emphasis in the literature on nutrition and cancer as an important factor in both quality of life and in the pathophysiology of cancer. Hence, the primary purpose of this paper is to review the current data on diet and nutrition as it pertains to a wide range of cancer patients in the palliative care setting.
Highlights
In cancer care models, the primary goals of palliative care are to relieve suffering and improve quality of life across the cancer illness trajectory
The results showed that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) induces apoptosis in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells via activation of caspase-8 and -9 dependent proapoptotic events [75]
The results showed that breast cancer survivors with a higher intake of ω-6 relative to ω-3 PUFAs were associated with greater C-reactive protein levels and greater odds of having fatigue (OR of 2.6 for the highest versus the lowest tertile of intake)
Summary
The primary goals of palliative care are to relieve suffering and improve quality of life across the cancer illness trajectory. The primary purpose of this paper is to review the current data on diet and nutrition as it pertains to a wide range of patients with cancer in the palliative care setting. The standard nutritional strategy became more focused on quality of life (QOL) and relief of symptoms, rather than active nutritional interventions aimed at improving outcome At this stage of the cancer illness, the expectation was short survival time, and the major goal was to minimize cachexia. (4) ensuring an adequate amount of specific nutrients and selective nutritional supplementation linked to cancer prevention/recurrence Using these strategies and based upon the most current data available, appropriate, individualized approaches to palliative care diet and nutrition can be established for a wide spectrum of patients with cancer. While some of the concepts below would certainly pertain to pediatric patients and an overall analysis of nutrition in children would be extremely valuable, space does not permit an additional review and analysis of this area of palliative care
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