A diagnosis of blood cancer can impact your nutrition and wellbeing.
Nutrition goals when you have blood cancer may be to:
- prevent or improve malnutrition
- avoid weight loss (preserve muscle)
- reduce weight gain
- reduce side effects like nausea and diarrhoea from treatment.
Being malnourished can affect your quality of life. It can cause weakness, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and pain.
Treatment for blood cancer can affect your nutrition. Some treatments can cause taste changes, nausea, diarrhoea, dry mouth, and mucositis. These can affect the types and how much food you can eat.
Some people are prescribed corticosteroids, also called steroids, as part of treatment. Steroids can cause weight gain. It can make you hungry and cause oedema in your legs, arms, stomach, and face.
Some general nutrition recommendations for people living with blood cancer:
- Maintain a healthy weight and avoid weight loss by eating and/or drinking enough calories.
- Get advice from your treatment team before trying to lose weight.
- Get nutrients through your food by eating protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, antioxidants, and water.
A dietitian can help you with a plan. You can access a dietitian through the hospital or a care plan with your GP (if you don’t have private health insurance or insurance that covers dietitians). Find a Dietitian in your area.
You can download our Eating Well booklet for information and recipes to help you reach your nutrition goals.
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Eating Well
pdf / 11.39 MB
Food safety
Food safety is important for everyone, especially if you have blood cancer.
Some blood cancers and treatments can weaken your immune system, which means it’s harder to fight infections. Food contamination from bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi or mould can lead to food poisoning. This can cause serious illness in people with a low immune system. It is important to safely prepare, store, and eat food.
Good food hygiene and following food safety guidelines can help reduce your risk.
Shopping and storage
Tips from the Food Safety Information Council on shopping and storage
- Clean your shopping trolley or basket, put fruit and vegetables into a clean bag, and clean your re-usable shopping bags.
- Choose items that are within used by date with no tears or breaks in the packaging.
- Vulnerable people with low immune systems may need to avoid certain foods like soft cheeses and deli meats.
- Chilled food and hot food should be kept separate and shopped for last.
- Take your shopping home as soon as possible to refrigerate.
- Avoid shopping where raw and cooked foods are kept uncovered together or packed using the same utensils.
- Separate raw and ready to eat food in shopping bags.
- Pack frozen and chilled items together in shopping bags.
- Store chilled and frozen items as soon as you get home.
- Use a cooler bag with ice bricks if you are delayed getting home.
- Store food items as per the label instructions.
Food preparation
The Food Safety Information Council lists food safety basics for food preparation:
- Clean hands for 20 seconds before preparing food and after handling raw meats and vegetables.
- Wash utensils and chopping boards in warm soapy water and dry well.
- Chill food that needs refrigerating as soon as possible at 5°C or below.
- Properly cook food, meats should be cooked until they reach 75°C.
- Separate raw and cooked foods when you store and prepare it.
Handling riskier foods
If you have a very low immune system, your treatment team may ask you to avoid some foods. This may include:
- pre-made food like sandwiches and buffet-style food
- shellfish, sushi, pate, raw meat and deli meats
- soft cheeses like brie, camembert, feta and blue vein
- reheating food if possible.
The Food Safety Information Council has more information on how to handle riskier foods.
More information:
References
- 3274-Changes to taste or smell during cancer treatment | eviQ
- Exercise, Diet, and Weight Management During Cancer Treatment: ASCO Guideline | Journal of Clinical Oncology
- Food Safety at Your Finger Tips- Food Safety Information Council Ltd
- 3088-Managing the side effects of anti-cancer medicines | eviQ
- 3100-Nausea and vomiting during cancer treatment | eviQ
- Nutrition Support Recipes for Cancer Treatment & Recovery
- The neutropenic diet and its impacts on clinical, nutritional, and lifestyle outcomes for people with cancer: a scoping review | Journal of Nutritional Science | Cambridge Core
