Eating well for strength of body and soul

Lauren Terrazzano | Life, With Cancer

November 14, 2006

Getting off the phone that day with my doctor, I did what any self-respecting person would do after finding out her cancer had returned.

I decided to eat myself to death, with Cheez Doodles.

Each crunch was a middle finger of sorts toward the disease that has consumed much of the past two years. I ate so many that I had an orange fluorescent ring around my lips and my fingers.

I was a good girl through my treatment and brief remission. I ate broccoli every day, even though I hate it. I ate blueberries for their antioxidant qualities. I had so many at times that I thought I would turn into Violet Beauregarde, the gum-snapping girl in the Willy Wonka movie who turned into a giant berry and had to be rolled away after eating too much blueberry candy.

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I drank green tea. Still do.

But for many cancer patients like myself, the conundrum of diet looms enormously after diagnosis. You either spend your time wondering a.) What did I do wrong? or b.) How can I fix it with food?

The skeptic in me wonders if diet really matters in the cure for cancer. If so, wouldn't large powerhouse institutions like Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center instead cash in and become Whole Food Supermarkets? Kale instead of chemotherapy? Radicchio instead of radiation?

If only it were that simple. A good diet is extremely important for cancer patients, nutritionists agree.

But what to eat is very confusing for the average person.

My friend Sarah, in fact, who recently underwent a double mastectomy at age 27, sometimes starts crying in the supermarket, overwhelmed by the choices she has to make in her new world. I have felt like doing the same at times.

Faced with the prospect of chemotherapy again, I was similarly confused when I visited two nutritionists to get advice on how to boost my immune system and get energy through my treatments. The traditional dietitian at Sloan-Kettering told me much of what I already know: Eat a well-balanced diet full of vegetables, fruits, proteins and whole grains. She also emphasized the importance of keeping weight on so that treatments could continue, uninterrupted. And if that meant eating Häagen-Dazs ice cream, she said, which packs a walloping 250 or so calories per serving, then so be it.

But the fantasy of drowning my sorrows in a pint of Vanilla Swiss Almond was just that. An alternative-medicine nutritionist I saw to get a second opinion told me to avoid sugar at all costs.

The fact is, there is no magic solution. Another nutritionist put it more bluntly. "The issue is this: The healthier you eat, the better it's going to be for you," said Linda Chio, a registered dietitian at the New York University Clinical Cancer Center. Chio, who counsels cancer patients, recommends that people undergoing treatment consult their oncologists or a registered dietitian to help tailor a diet specifically to them. People undergoing radiation to the chest area often have a hard time swallowing, so a softer, more liquid diet is often easier. Those undergoing certain types of chemotherapy may have certain vitamin deficiencies. Vitamin supplements, many nutritionists agree, should be taken only with the approval of the treating oncologist.

Mostly, Chio said, she tries to help patients navigate the murky waters of what to eat, and even how to eat, during treatment. More frequent, smaller meals are better, she said. She also recommends the American Institute of Cancer Research, at AICR.org, for useful information and recipes.

Still, Chio added, "There is no one miracle diet, no one miracle food. But there are better choices than others. Green tea and blueberries are better than coke and chips." I wonder how she feels about Cheez Doodles?